It might seem like just good manners, but according to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, politeness comes with a hefty price tag.
In a recent post on X (formerly Twitter), Altman responded to a question about the financial impact of users including courteous language in their prompts to ChatGPT.
He explained that these seemingly innocent pleasantries actually drive up energy use and operating costs in a meaningful way.
The estimated cost? Altman put it in the ballpark of “tens of millions of dollars.” Still, he called the expense “well spent,” adding cryptically, “You never know.”
At the heart of the issue lies the way large language models (LLMs), like those powering ChatGPT, process user queries.
These models require massive computing resources – specifically thousands of high-performance GPUs operating across vast data centers.
This infrastructure, shared with OpenAI’s hardware partner NVIDIA, is critical to enabling the real-time language generation that users expect.
Each interaction with an AI system draws on considerable power.
A 2023 joint study by the University of Washington and the Allen Institute for AI found that a single AI-generated response can consume up to 0.14 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity.
That’s about the same as running 14 LED light bulbs for an hour.
When scaled to millions or even billions of prompts per day, the energy usage quickly becomes substantial.
Globally, data centers are already responsible for around 2% of total electricity consumption, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
With AI usage expanding at an unprecedented pace, that figure is expected to climb unless major innovations in energy efficiency are made.
Does being polite to AI really matter beyond just saving energy?
Many in the tech world believe it does.
Kurtis Beavers, lead designer for Microsoft Copilot, noted in a Microsoft WorkLab interview that using respectful language can lead to more “respectful, collaborative outputs” from AI. “When it detects politeness,” he explained, “it’s more likely to respond politely in return.”
A 2024 survey found that 67% of Americans use polite language with chatbots. More than half say they do it because it feels like the right thing to do.
Interestingly, 12% admitted they’re polite just in case AI ever becomes more powerful—half-joking that it might help them stay on AI’s good side in the event of a future robot uprising.
