Would you tip a robot?

Suppose we became masterfully proficient at producing robots. One day, after years of development, we finally create a robot that can replicate itself. It can create all the required microchips. It can fashion steel members from garbage, and it can write the required software. This is the point where robots cease to be something we're willing to pay for. We'll only pay for things that can't be produced at zero cost, like food.

Let's say a tribe of these self-replicating robots open a restaurant. Let’s call it iDine. Would you go to dinner there? The food's going to be just as good or better than a human-run restaurant. It’s going to be much cheaper because the robots at iDine don't have salaries to pay. It seems like a no brainer to go to iDine. You get the same product and service as you get from a human-run restaurant, only cheaper and faster.

Not everything though.

If the robot waiter asks you: "how was the food?", would you say: "It was lovely, thanks." I think you may, but only out of habit. I don't think there's any joy in expressing gratitude to a robot. Robots don't have intent. Everything they do, they're programmed to do.

A parallel in our own world is the feeling I get when using ChatGPT. I often start by asking it: "Please create ...". Then I stop. I erase the "Please". Something feels off about being polite to a robot. On the other hand, it doesn't bother me one bit to be blunt or abrupt to a robot. I certainly won’t tip a robot. Why should I part with my hard-earned money for the welfare of a mindless pile of metal?

This might even move me to choose a human-run restaurant over iDine. I'm going to be paying extra for the privilege of expressing my gratitude and for the feeling of status I get when tipping the waiter.

We don't need to wait until the robots take over to apply this principle. It seems that expressing gratitude and conferring status upon ourselves by being generous are deep human desires. How can we build this into every one of our endeavors?