The CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, the developer of the ChatGPT application, said that polite interaction with the application, such as saying 'thank you' or 'please', costs millions of dollars in electricity and unnecessary computing activity.
According to Altman, such politeness leads to 'global waste' that contributes to a tangible environmental impact.
One person asked Sam Altman on X platform, 'How much money has OpenAI lost in electricity costs due to people saying (please) and (thank you) to their models?' Altman responded, saying, 'Tens of millions of dollars have been spent.'
Altman added, 'Saying (please) or (thank you) may seem trivial, but it requires the system to interpret, process, and formulate a complete response, sometimes to long and complex texts. Each such interaction consumes significant energy and computational time in advanced data centers.'
Reports indicate that these centers already represent about 2% of global electricity consumption, and this figure is likely to rise significantly with the increasing integration of AI into daily tasks.
While many users see polite interaction with AI as culturally appropriate or a mechanism to improve answer quality, Altman offers a more realistic and slightly pessimistic view that it costs money.
And while it may seem pointless to treat smart chatbots with respect, some artificial intelligence engineers see it as an important step. For example, Curtis Bevins, design director at Microsoft, says that appropriate etiquette helps produce respectful and collaborative outputs.
Bevins noted that 'using polite language sets the tone of the response,' commenting, 'It can be said that what we consider artificial intelligence can be more accurately described as (predictive machines), like the predictive text on your phone, but with a greater ability to formulate complete sentences in response to questions or instructions.'
Bevins added in an analytical memo from Microsoft's lab, 'When the AI sees respect from you, it is likely to respond politely, as the generated AI reflects levels of professionalism, clarity, and detail in the guidance you provide.'
A survey conducted in late 2024 showed that 67% of American participants reported treating their chatbots kindly, while 55% of American AI users said they do so because it is the right thing to do, while 12% did it to please the algorithm in case of an AI uprising.