In a surprising revelation, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently shared that being polite to AI, like saying “please” and “thank you,” costs the company millions of dollars. This statement was sparked by a post on X, which led to discussions about how niceties add to the operational costs of AI services like ChatGPT. As AI technologies expand into everyday life, the economic impact of these small gestures has become a curious topic of conversation.
What’s Happening & Why This Matters
OpenAI, which powers models like ChatGPT, has been experiencing a significant increase in electricity consumption, which has translated into higher operational costs. The cause? Users’ habitual politeness towards AI. The models require more processing power when users include “please” or “thank you” in their prompts. This leads to higher energy consumption and increased operational costs for OpenAI. According to Altman, these costs amount to tens of millions of dollars.
A tweet from an X user jokingly asked how much OpenAI might have lost due to people being polite to the AI. Altman responded candidly: “Tens of millions of dollars well spent — you never know.” This exchange illuminated a fascinating intersection of AI, social behavior, and technology costs.
Interestingly, a survey released in February revealed that 67% of U.S. AI users are polite to AI systems. Of those, 18% expressed doing so to protect themselves in case of an AI uprising. The rest believed it was the right thing to do. While seemingly innocuous, this behavior has substantial effects on energy and infrastructure requirements, especially when it comes to systems that handle vast numbers of users and complex operations.
The high operational costs for AI processing are primarily due to cloud computing and the server power needed to handle multiple requests. ChatGPT, for instance, processes millions of queries daily, requiring a lot of energy. In light of growing environmental concerns, this is becoming a critical issue for tech companies trying to balance sustainability with business goals.
TF Summary: What’s Next
While AI continues to be a game-changer in various industries, it’s clear that even the smallest actions, like saying “please” or “thank you,” increase costs. As AI technology becomes more ingrained in daily life, companies like OpenAI must explore ways to mitigate energy consumption while maintaining the user-friendly, polite experience people enjoy. The balance between ethical AI usage, cost efficiency, and sustainability will be critical as we look to the future of AI systems.
As consumers and companies adopt AI-driven tools, we may see changes in user behavior or even AI design to account for these hidden costs. Whether people will continue to use polite phrases or whether it will become more efficient to skip the pleasantries remains to be seen.
— Text-to-Speech (TTS) provided by gspeech