Why Being Polite to ChatGPT Is Costing OpenAI Millions and Wasting Electricity

Though it might be tempting to say “please” and “thank you” to ChatGPT as if speaking to a human, it may cause more harm than good, at least for OpenAI’s bottom line.

Polite exchanges are costing the AI company a fortune, CEO Sam Altman revealed in an exchange on X. “I wonder how much money OpenAI has lost in electricity costs from people saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ to their models,” writes user @tomieinlove. “Tens of millions of dollars well spent—you never know,” Altman responded.

According to a recent study, 69% of Gen Zers say “please” and “thank you” when speaking to ChatGPT. Every word sent to the AI requires computing power to process and respond to, including names. Overall, AI chatbots require immense energy, many times more than a typical Google search. According to a Goldman Sachs report on data center power, a Google search consumes 0.3 watt-hours of electricity; one ChatGPT search consumes 2.9 watt-hours.

Cooling off data centers also requires millions (billions?) of gallons of water. Tech companies report a spike in water usage in recent years, even before AI.

“If we continue with the status quo, we will not protect freshwater resources for future generations,” Microsoft said in a 2022 sustainability report. Google echoes the urgency: “The world is facing an unprecedented water crisis, with global freshwater demand predicted to exceed supply by 40% by 2030.”

Are there any reasons to be polite to a chatbot? Society has long grappled with how humans should interact with humanlike machines like Amazon’s Alexa. Some parents worry that Alexa’s high tolerance for rudeness instills poor behavior in their kids, according to Quartz. Others disagree, saying we should teach kids to be rude to machines to underscore the point that they are not human.

Altman may have said the money is “well spent” because the company’s goal is to make its products as humanlike as possible, which could mean adopting human societal norms. Time will tell how it shakes out; ChatGPT is more popular than ever. Fortune reports that the user base is “growing very rapidly” and may have doubled following the March launch of an image generator.

About Emily Forlini

Senior Reporter

I’m the expert at PCMag for all things electric vehicles and AI. I’ve written hundreds of articles on these topics, including product reviews, daily news, CEO interviews, and deeply reported features. I also cover other topics within the tech industry, keeping a pulse on what technologies are coming down the pipe that could shape how we live and work.

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