Data Reveals the Real Cost of Being Polite to ChatGPT

Being polite is expensive. For OpenAI, that is. According to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, per Tom's Hardware, polite exchanges with ChatGPT cost "tens of millions of dollars" in expenses. 

In a separate interview, Kurt Beavers, a Microsoft Copilot design director, corroborated that sentiment and added, "using polite language sets a tone for the response..." Beavers adds that when regenerative AI "clocks politeness, it’s more likely to be polite back.”

But what, exactly, is so expensive?

According to recent reports obtained by the outlet, a "you are welcome response... uses roughly 40-50 milliliters of water." And water, according to reports from The Washington Post, is used to cool the servers that generate the data. And that costs money. 

Tom's Hardware notes, "Texas had the lowest water usage at an estimated 235 milliliters needed to generate one 100-word email, while Washington demanded a whopping 1,408 milliliters per email — which is about three 16.9oz water bottles."

Speaking to The Washington Post, Microsoft's Craig Cincotta said that the company was "working toward data center cooling methods that will eliminate water consumption completely."

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

What's the latest in the world of AI? According to a New York Times article from April 16, OpenAI's technology is learning to "reason" with images. What does that mean?

Mark Chen, head of research at OpenAI, stated that AI will be able to "manipulate, crop and transform images in service of the task you want to do." Images could be generated from scratch, as well. 

It's worth noting that this kind of "reasoning" is different from humans'. The outlet wrote, "And like other A.I. technologies, they can get things wrong and make stuff up — a phenomenon called hallucination."

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