UnusualWhales

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed last week on social media that users saying "please" and "thank you" to ChatGPT has come at a surprisingly high cost to the company.

Altman made the remark in response to a question on X (formerly Twitter), where a user asked how much energy OpenAI had used thanks to people being polite to its AI models.

“Worth tens of millions of dollars—you never know,” Altman replied, suggesting the expense was significant but not unwelcome.

Generative AI is known for its substantial energy demands, particularly during the training phase of large models.

Kurtis Beavers, a design director on Microsoft’s Copilot team, addressed this in a Microsoft WorkLab memo. He emphasized that showing courtesy when interacting with AI helps promote “respectful, collaborative outputs.”

Beavers noted that generative AI tends to reflect the tone, professionalism, and clarity of the prompts it receives. He added that treating the chatbot politely “not only brings back the same kind of respectful tone, but can also enhance the AI’s responsiveness and effectiveness.”