Saying „Please“ and „Thank you“ is free, unless you’re talking to a ChatGPT chatbot
It turns out, being nice doesn’t always come free, at least not when you’re chatting with AI like ChatGPT. OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, recently pointed out something surprising about its running costs: users saying „please“ and „thank you“ are actually bumping up the company’s energy expenses by „tens of millions“ of dollars.
It’s an interesting peek behind the curtain, showing not just the hidden energy demands of these AI models, but also how weird our relationship with them is getting. Altman’s comment was a reply to someone wondering about the energy footprint of using polite words with AI. Honestly, it’s not something most of us think about while prompting ChatGPT.
For us as users, online stuff feels separate from the real world’s resources, but that’s not exactly how it works.
