--- title: Asking well, being polite, knowing when to stop — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Asking well, being polite, knowing when to stop», a lesson of the ai course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: "Tell me about volcanoes" gets a blur; "Explain in five steps why volcanoes erupt, for a 9-year-old" gets something useful. --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/ai/8-asking-well-and-knowing-when-to-stop/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [AI](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/ai/) / Asking well, being polite, knowing whe… # Asking well, being polite, knowing when to stop Lesson 8 of the ai course of Mova's primary school: 16 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/ai/8-asking-well-and-knowing-when-to-stop/). - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/ai/8-asking-well-and-knowing-when-to-stop/1/) — "Tell me about volcanoes" gets a blur; "Explain in five steps why volcanoes erupt, for a 9-year-old" gets something useful. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/ai/8-asking-well-and-knowing-when-to-stop/2/) — Remember what it cannot do. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/ai/8-asking-well-and-knowing-when-to-stop/3/) — It cannot look out of the window, it cannot keep a secret like a friend, because chats may be stored, and it often cannot truly explain its own mistakes; its explanations of itself may be guesses too. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/ai/8-asking-well-and-knowing-when-to-stop/4/) — It can also mix things up: "colour" one day and "color" the next, or two famous people with the same surname blended into one. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/ai/8-asking-well-and-knowing-when-to-stop/5/) — Its name is a product name, like a cereal brand, and its "personality" is set by its makers and can change overnight after an update. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/ai/8-asking-well-and-knowing-when-to-stop/6/) — Most of all, a bot never gets tired of you, so you are the one who has to choose when to stop. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/ai/8-asking-well-and-knowing-when-to-stop/7/) — Clear, detailed questions get clearer answers. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/ai/8-asking-well-and-knowing-when-to-stop/8/) — Asking a bot for steps and for its sources makes its answers easier to check. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/ai/8-asking-well-and-knowing-when-to-stop/9/) — Bots learned from British and American English and may mix spellings like "colour" and "color". - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/ai/8-asking-well-and-knowing-when-to-stop/10/) — Bots cannot keep secrets like a friend; conversations may be saved. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/ai/8-asking-well-and-knowing-when-to-stop/11/) — A bot's name is a product name chosen by a company. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/ai/8-asking-well-and-knowing-when-to-stop/12/) — Bots often cannot look inside themselves, so their explanations of their own mistakes may be made up. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/ai/8-asking-well-and-knowing-when-to-stop/13/) — Bots can mix up two people with similar names. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/ai/8-asking-well-and-knowing-when-to-stop/14/) — A bot cannot see outside; some assistants can look up the weather online, but your eyes are better for what is in front of you. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/ai/8-asking-well-and-knowing-when-to-stop/15/) — You are responsible for the words you use, even if a bot suggested them. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/ai/8-asking-well-and-knowing-when-to-stop/17/) — Companies update their bots, so a bot's tone and "personality" can change. - ← previous: [Pretend games, quotes and two bots that disagree](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/ai/7-pretend-games-quotes-and-two-bots/) - next →: [The essay the teacher spotted](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/ai/9-the-essay-the-teacher-spotted/) - ↑ back to [AI](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/ai/)