Mind your manners with AI, but doing so might cost OpenAI dearly

The corners of the internet where humans talk with AI have become like the wild west of our small, yet deeply connected digital dwelling grounds. And here, when chatting with AI, your good manners, yep, those cheerful “pleases” and “thank yous”, might be sneakily running up the electric bill over at the OpenAI HQ.

How much does your politeness cost?

A user recently posed an amusing query on X (formerly Twitter): “I wonder how much money OpenAI has lost in electricity costs from people saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ to their models.” It seemed like a throwaway comment until OpenAI CEO Sam Altman chimed in with a curious admission: “Tens of millions of dollars well spent – you never know.”

It’s unlikely Altman’s reply was backed by an exact figure, but it stirred up a fascinating conversation. Futurism quickly speculated whether politeness in AI conversations could actually be wasteful. After all, those extra keystrokes require processing power, and when multiplied by millions of users, the energy costs could add up.

But it turns out there might be more to this than wasted watts. Kurt Beavers, a director on the Microsoft Copilot design team, offered a more thoughtful take. According to him, polite inputs set the tone for a chatbot’s response. When an AI “clocks politeness,” it often responds in kind. So, your “please” and “thank you” might be influencing not just the conversation’s mood, but also the quality of the reply.

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That doesn’t mean every exchange needs to be sugar-coated. Beavers adds that even profanity has its place, depending on context. The AI doesn’t judge, but it does adapt.

So, should you start trimming the manners to save the planet, or maybe OpenAI’s wallet? Maybe not. If politeness makes your AI chats feel more natural, or even a bit more human, Altman thinks it’s money well spent.

And who knows? In a world where every digital conversation shapes tone, your “thank you” might be doing more than you think.