Stop Being Polite To ChatGPT. It's Costing OpenAI "Tens Of Millions Of Dollars"
Saying 'Please' and 'Thank you' is expensive.
By Sukhbir Cheema — 22 Apr 2025, 11:19 AM
Turns out, your digital manners might be draining more than just your device's battery
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently let slip that all those polite "pleases" and "thank yous" users toss at ChatGPT are adding up — to the tune of tens of millions of dollars.
Altman's comment came in response to a question on X (formerly Twitter) about the energy cost of polite chatter with AI.
His reply? "Tens of millions of dollars well spent — you never know." A little tongue-in-cheek, maybe, but there's truth behind the humour.
Every word you type, whether it's "Hey ChatGPT" or just "help", triggers a sophisticated response from large-scale AI systems
These are not your average calculators — they're power-hungry machines running on servers that consume significant amounts of electricity.
In fact, each ChatGPT-4 query burns through roughly 10 times more electricity than a Google search. Multiply that by millions of users? You get a global grid feeling the heat.
Water, too, is part of the cost. AI data centres rely on massive cooling systems, and according to researchers at UC Riverside, generating just 100 words can consume the equivalent of three bottles of water.
Even a simple "You're welcome" has a water footprint.
And as AI usage grows, so do the stakes. ARM CEO Rene Haas warns that AI could consume 25% of the US's electricity by 2030. Right now, it's only 4%.
So, the next time you thank your chatbot for helping draft that email, remember: kindness counts — but it also costs.
