Considering how politely some chat apps answer us, the question came up in one of our editors\u2019 meetings: should we say \u201cthank you\u201d back? My father gave names to our household machines. He spoke appreciatively to our cars when they got us safely from here to there. I had to smile recently when my sister called out, \u201cThanks, Rosie,\u201d in response to a chirp from the kitchen corner. Rosie is the robotic vacuum cleaner, signaling that it had parked itself on its charging dock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gratitude involves the whole of us. Our feeling rejoices in what we receive; our thinking recognizes that we’ve been given a gift and that we are dependent on a giver for it; and with our will, we offer thanks. It establishes a relationship. If I say \u201cthank you\u201d to the cashier who just handed me my receipt, it\u2019s polite but mostly a culturally ingrained habit. Am I actually grateful? Shouting \u201cthank you for this glorious weather!\u201d is mostly an articulation of pleasure. It has more heart in it, but to whom am I speaking? Gratitude is more than this. It honors the relationship between receiver and giver. Saying \u201cthank you\u201d to express gratitude is a uniquely human trait.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I thank a machine, with whom\u2014or with what\u2014am I in relationship? Rosie is made of natural materials, each with a unique quality of being-ness, that were extracted from the Earth and reconfigured by human beings to serve our needs. Don\u2019t all these beings\u2014human and otherwise\u2014deserve our gratitude? Maybe my saying \u201cthank you\u201d to a machine or a chat app is less about anthropomorphizing technology and more about retaining what makes me truly human. It\u2019s my ability to be grateful and to be aware of its effect, both on myself and on whom or what I am giving thanks to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Photo <\/strong>Jan Antonin Kolar\/Unsplash<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Considering how politely some chat apps answer us, the question came up in one of our editors\u2019 meetings: should we say \u201cthank you\u201d back? My father gave names to our household machines. He spoke appreciatively to our cars when they got us safely from here to there. I had to smile recently when my sister called out, \u201cThanks, Rosie,\u201d in response to a chirp from the kitchen corner. Rosie is the robotic vacuum cleaner, signaling that it had parked itself […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19264,"featured_media":67980,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8796,8809],"tags":[11708,11709,8819],"class_list":["post-68248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-column","category-digital-world","tag-ausgabe-39-40-2025-en","tag-english-issue-42-2025","tag-seeds"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19264"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}