Why Politeness To ChatGPT Cost OpenAI Millions Of Dollars?

Recently, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman disclosed that users’ politeness towards ChatGPT is posing an unexpected rise in company’s operational costs.

It all started with a post on X, where a user expressed thoughts on how polite phrases is increasing energy costs for OpenAI’s chatbot. “I wonder how much money OpenAI has lost in electricity costs from people saying “please” and “thank you” to their models,” user remarked.

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I wonder how much money OpenAI has lost in electricity costs from people saying “please” and “thank you” to their models.

— tomie (@tomieinlove) April 15, 2025

Altman responded it with a tinge of humour and insight. “Tens of millions of dollars well spent–you never know,” tech billionaire wrote.

tens of millions of dollars well spent–you never know

— Sam Altman (@sama) April 16, 2025

Since Generative AI models like ChatGPT operate on complex algorithms, even for a polite or short message, it initiates a full response from a powerful AI model, which necessitates significant computational power to generate language in real time.

As per 2024 survey, 67% of American respondents are being nice to their chatbots. Among them, 55% said that they are doing it “because it’s the right thing to do,” while 12% responded that they did it so as to algorithm in the case of an AI uprising.

The increased power consumption of AI models is driven by the complexity of the computations involved, Indian Express quotes, Goldman Sachs Research.

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Similarly, a study by the University of California and The Washington Post observes that initiating a simple 100-word email using AI necessitated about 0.14 kilowatt-hours of electricity which equals to power 14 LED lights for an hour.