Saying 'please' to ChatGPT? OpenAI CEO reveals how politeness is costing more than you think
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed that being polite to ChatGPT comes with a significant cost, especially in terms of energy consumption.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed that saying "please" and "thank you" to ChatGPT has cost the company millions in energy expenses. The CEO's comment came after a user inquired about the electricity costs associated with the polite AI interactions.
Generative AI, known for its high energy consumption, has raised questions about the impact of etiquette on its operations. Studies also show that many users engage politely with AI, not just out of courtesy, but sometimes out of concern for future consequences.
Being polite in ChatGPT cost thousands of millions
Altman responded to a user on X (formerly Twitter) who asked how much OpenAI had spent on electricity cost due to users being polite to the AI models.
"Tens of millions of dollars well spent—you never know," was Altman's reply
Generative AI, particularly in terms of training models, is known to consume large amounts of energy. Kurtis Beavers, a director at Microsoft Copilot, explained to USA Today that "using basic etiquette when interacting with AI" can help generate more "respectful, collaborative outputs." He added that polite prompts lead to more professional, clear, and detailed responses, improving the AI's overall performance.
Moreover, politeness come with an energy cost. A report from The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), in May 2024, found that asking ChatGPT a question or sending a comment uses 10 times more energy than conducting a typical Google search without AI-generated summaries at the top.
Additionally, AI systems require significant amounts of water to cool the servers that power them. A study by the University of California, Riverside, revealed that generating a 100-word email with ChatGPT requires up to 1,408 milliliters of water—about three 16.9-ounce bottles. A simple three-word response like "You are welcome" uses 40 to 50 milliliters of water.
How polite are Americans to ChatGPT?
A survey published in February by the publisher, Future, revealed that 67% of people who use AI are polite in the U.S. Nearly one out of five respondents of that group (18%) stated that they say "please" and "thank you" to AI to protect themselves in case of a possible AI uprising.
The remaining 82% said they were polite simply because it was "nice" to be that way to anyone, AI or human.
The survey of more than 1,000 people show that about two-thirds of people say they are impolite to AI due to brevity. Additionally, about 12% of respondents say they are polite out of fear of future consequences.