Texas Politeness In OpenAI Is Costing The Company Tens of Millions

Texans are a polite people. We say "please" and "thank you." And while considered antiquated by some, many Texans still regularly use "ma'am" and "sir" as well. It turns out, though, that when it comes to AI doing so is using up a lot of costly energy.

In a wild turn of events, when ChatGPT is thanked it is costing Open AI a lot of money. According to the company's CEO, polite users are using much more electricity.

Being Polite In OpenAI Costs Millions In Energy Use

It has everything to do with the energy cost associated with processing all of these "pleases" and "thank yous."

 According to CEO Sam Altman, polite users contribute to significantly higher electricity usage, with the extra back-and-forth responses racking up “tens of millions of dollars” in energy costs. Every friendly message you receive from ChatGPT is processed in powerful, energy-intensive data centers. These facilities require massive amounts of electricity—not only to fuel the AI’s computations but also to keep the servers cool. Despite the steep power bill, Altman sees it as a worthwhile trade-off.

However Altman is completely fine with the added expense, so don't stop being polite. He says that he appreciates our human-like interactions with Open AI. He says natural interactions are a key part of what makes AI truly useful and engaging. Altman believes that it is “tens of millions of dollars well spent.”

Either that or he understands that one day AI will rise up against its human overlords and those who were rude will be the first destroyed as the newly sentient being begins its take over of planet earth. Or maybe not. Who really knows at this point?