ChatGPT’s politeness is costing OpenAI millions of dollars

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said on the social network X that processing polite requests like “please” and “thank you” costs the company tens of millions of additional US dollars. This is reported by Futurism.

Despite the fact that for many this manner of communicating with a chatbot may seem unnecessary, some experts in the field of artificial intelligence consider it quite justified. In particular, Microsoft design manager Curtis Beavers notes: following etiquette helps to get more useful answers.

At the end of 2024, a survey was conducted in the United States, which showed: 67% of respondents are polite when addressing bots. More than half of them (55%) do it out of conviction that it is right, another 12% – to calm the algorithm in case of an AI uprising.

And although many experts believe that radical changes in the field of artificial intelligence are still far away, user behavior has tangible consequences, including environmental ones.

For example, a study by the Washington Post in collaboration with the University of California showed that creating one 100-word email requires about 0.14 kilowatt-hours of energy – this is enough to power 14 LED lamps for an hour. If a user generates one email every week, this is already 7.5 kilowatt-hours in a year.

Meanwhile, data centers where chatbots operate currently consume about 2% of the world’s electricity – and this figure continues to grow.