If your mum ever told you that good manners cost nothing, you might want to sit her down for a quick chat. Because as it turns out, when you say “please” and “thank you” to ChatGPT, it actually does cost something—quite a bit, in fact.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently stirred up a storm online when he revealed that all those extra polite prompts users send to their AI chatbot are costing the company “tens of millions of dollars” each year. That’s right—your friendly digital etiquette might be burning a very real hole in OpenAI’s pocket.
Let’s unpack how we got here—and why a few kind words to a robot are racking up such a hefty tab.
It started with a cheeky question on X how much has OpenAI lost just from people saying “please” and “thank you” in prompts?
Altman’s response? “Tens of millions of dollars well spent—you never know.” A wink, a nod, and a not-so-subtle hint at the scale of the issue.
Here’s the techy bit: every single time you type a prompt—whether it’s a deep philosophical musing or a quick “cheers!”—ChatGPT processes it using large-scale neural networks. This burns up electricity, taps into server farms, and requires water to cool the data centers. Even a short polite phrase demands the same backend processing as a meatier message.
To put it in perspective, a ChatGPT-4 query guzzles up about 2.9 watt-hours of electricity—nearly ten times the juice it takes to run a Google search. Now multiply that by a billion queries a day across 350 million weekly users. You can see how this snowballs, right?
Let’s make it more relatable. Think of each polite ChatGPT exchange like boiling a kettle for one cuppa. One or two? No biggie. But imagine boiling it non-stop for months on end—just to keep the AI humming with “thank yous” and “pleases.” That’s a lot of Earl Grey down the drain.
Or consider this: generating a simple 100-word email with AI uses enough energy to power 14 LED lights for an hour. All that for a quick “cheers, mate”? Blimey.
Data centers already account for around 2% of the world’s total electricity use, and AI’s growing hunger for power means that number’s climbing fast. Every polite nudge to ChatGPT also means more water for cooling—with reports noting that even a “You’re welcome” response might consume 40 to 50 millilitres of water. It’s not gallons per message, but again—multiply by the billions.
So while you’re being nice to your digital assistant, there’s a quiet hum of fans and cooling systems working overtime somewhere in the background. A bit like leaving the heating on all day just to warm up your goldfish.
Naturally, the internet had opinions. Social media lit up with jokes about “robot uprisings” and tongue-in-cheek fears of being on the AI’s bad side when Skynet eventually boots up.
One popular post quipped,
“Guess I’ll start ghosting ChatGPT now to save the planet.”
But mixed in with the laughs were some genuine concerns. A 2024 survey found that 67% of Americans use polite language with AI, and about 12% admit they do it “just in case the algorithm remembers” when the machines take over. Across the UK, US, and Australia, politeness isn’t just habit—it’s a cultural reflex. We say “sorry” when someone bumps into us, after all.
Psychologists and AI designers agree: we’re polite to machines because we’re conditioned to be polite to people. It’s manners. It’s muscle memory. Sometimes it’s just funny.
Interestingly, experts like Microsoft’s Kurtis Beavers say being nice to AI might actually pay off. Polite prompts often produce more collaborative, less biased responses. AI models mirror the tone they’re given—so if you’re respectful, they tend to respond in kind.
So, here we are. “Please” and “thank you” might be racking up costs and carbon emissions. But at the same time, they help shape a kinder digital experience and possibly even improve AI outputs.
Altman’s comment—calling it “money well spent”—suggests he still sees value in encouraging civility, even if it comes at a cost.
