Being polite to ChatGPT is good manners and can generate better AI responses. However, it’s also surprisingly expensive for OpenAI.
Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, has revealed that polite ChatGPT users are increasing the company’s operational costs.
One user on X asked how much electricity OpenAI wastes when people send “please” and “thank you” to their prompts. “Tens of millions of dollars well spent,” Altman said. Then he added an intriguing, “You never know.”
tens of millions of dollars well spent–you never know
— Sam Altman (@sama) April 16, 2025
While Altman’s tone was cheeky, the reality behind the comment shows the complex economics behind conversational AI. No matter how polite, each additional word and query demands more computational power and energy.
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Polite ChatGPT Users’ Costly Queries
X users quickly jumped on the so-called “politeness tax” with sarcastic solutions. Others proposed that polite responses such as “you’re welcome” could be handled client-side and not require server-side processing and electricity.
Meanwhile, others suggested cutting back ChatGPT’s wordy output to help minimize resource consumption.
But beneath the sarcasm, the conversation reveals a real technological hiccup. As AI tools such as ChatGPT rise, small acts have enormous effects. OpenAI, which handles over a billion prompts daily, becomes increasingly energy-hungry the more interactions it has.
A 2024 report by Goldman Sachs found that a single ChatGPT-4 query consumes a striking 2.9 watt-hours of electricity. This consumption is around ten times the energy consumed by a single Google search. Multiply that by hundreds of millions of daily prompts, and the cumulative energy becomes overwhelming.
Since ChatGPT has more than 150 million weekly active users, even small increases in query or frequency exponentially compound the demand. Although AI politeness is harmless, it’s now a factor in data center management and sustainability planning.
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Viral Growth, Viral Usage
ChatGPT’s cultural relevance is partly responsible for the increase in usage. The tool has been involved in several internet trends lately, including viral AI Ghibli-style art.
These trends entice millions to interact with ChatGPT, amplifying the computational pressure.
That’s why OpenAI has been under increasing pressure to deliver performance and efficiency amid this boom. The company has invested heavily in infrastructure to serve demand while providing fast, human-like responses.
Altman’s remark is a tongue-in-cheek reference to a larger concern shared with all AI companies: how to balance innovation, usability, and sustainability. AI basically has to get smarter and greener to accommodate its increasing audience.
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Innovation Amid the Irony
Despite the buzz around politeness and power bills, OpenAI continues to launch powerful new models.
The company just released two advanced reasoning engines, o3 and o4-mini, to further strengthen its leadership in the AI race.
On SWE-bench, a tricky coding and logic benchmark, o3 scored 69.1%. Meanwhile, o4-mini scored 68.1%, making them the watch-out-for players in the AI scene.
These figures underline OpenAI’s efforts to deploy more powerful, energy-hungry systems.
The release of these models comes at tremendous competitive pressure from competitors such as Google DeepMind, Meta, and Elon Musk’s xAI. Now, these companies are racing to roll out next-gen AI models that have improved contextual reasoning, speed, and user adaptability.
However, improved models are more carbon-intensive. As modeling size and usage increase, so does the need for responsible AI development and energy optimization.
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Being Polite to ChatGPT Has a Price Tag
This conversation has triggered a deeper debate about the unintended cost of politeness. Saying “please” and “thank you” may seem trivial, but it illustrates a larger challenge the tech world needs to grapple with.
OpenAI’s transparency in these operational quirks helps humanize the complex systems surrounding AI. It also reminds users that their digital manners have a domino effect across global energy grids.
While Altman said that those additional dollars are “well spent,” the comment highlights the trade-offs of modern AI: its humanity comes at a quantifiable cost.
In a time of increased digital demand, every kilowatt matters—a single “please” or “thank you” becomes the polite way to advance technology and power grids.
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