The Hidden Costs of Politeness to AI
In a world increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence (AI), even the simplest interactions can carry hidden consequences. A recent question posed on social media wondered how much money OpenAI has lost in electricity costs from people saying “please” and “thank you” to their models. According to Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, the answer is in the tens of millions of dollars. This raises an interesting point about the environmental and financial impact of our digital habits.
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Polite language, while a hallmark of British culture, may come with a cost that extends beyond just words. Eight out of ten Britons are friendly to AI chatbots, but being polite to these systems also contributes to energy consumption. Every time we ask ChatGPT to write an email, analyze our Instagram profile, or plan our monthly budget, it uses energy. The daily electricity bill for this AI assistant is estimated at 40 million kilowatt-hours, enough to charge 8 million phones.
Data centers, which power AI technologies, require vast amounts of water to stay cool. ChatGPT alone consumes approximately 39.16 million gallons of water per day. That’s enough to fill 978,000 baths or flush a toilet 24 million times. This highlights the growing environmental footprint of AI and the need for sustainable practices.
Why Does AI Require So Much Energy?
Generative AI, like ChatGPT, is capable of creating content such as text and images. This is made possible through large language models, which function as neural networks that learn by analyzing data from across the internet. However, this process requires immense amounts of power.
Morten Goodwin, a professor at the University of Agder in Norway, explains that data must be transmitted, processed, and stored, whether the request is complex or simple. This applies not only to AI but also to everyday online activities like Google searches, emails, or Teams meetings. Even human interactions, such as saying “thank you,” consume energy—albeit on a much smaller scale.
Some companies meet AI’s energy demands by using fossil fuels, contributing to carbon emissions. Dr. Daniel Farrelly, a principal lecturer in psychology at the University of Worcester, notes that all online activity has a carbon footprint. While individual actions may seem insignificant, their cumulative effect is substantial. The challenge lies in making these invisible impacts more visible to the public.
Is Politeness Necessary When Interacting With AI?
When it comes to chatbots, politeness may not have a significant impact on performance. A study found that polite prompts have a “negligible” effect on how well AI performs. Neil Johnson, co-author of the study and a professor of physics at George Washington University, compares this to how we treat a toaster. “Are you nice to your toaster? We don’t put birthday wrapping around the bread slice to make it look nicer,” he said.
Robert Blackwell, a senior research associate at the Alan Turing Institute, explained that AI processes words by tokenizing them—breaking them into smaller pieces before processing. The more tokens used, the higher the cost for companies running these models. Newer reasoning models use even more tokens, increasing energy consumption further.
Despite this, there are reasons to be kind to AI. Research suggests that how we treat AI reflects how we treat each other. Goodwin, who is also deputy director at the Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research, says that language models learn from the people who use them. If we are polite everywhere, even to chatbots, it sets a norm of politeness.
Why Do We Say Please and Thank You to AI?
One reason we interact with AI in a human-like manner is its ability to perform tasks at near-human levels. This can be overwhelming for many users, leading them to anthropomorphize AI—projecting human traits onto non-human entities. Luise Freese, who runs the tech blog M356 Princess, explained that this is partly due to pop culture, including movies like Terminator, which often portray AI as both exciting and dangerous.
This anthropomorphism can lead to emotional dependency or misplaced trust in systems that are, at their core, mechanical. Ana Valdivia, a departmental research lecturer in AI at Oxford, noted that the tendency to humanize AI is influenced by how these technologies are marketed. This can create a false sense of understanding and empathy, even when AI lacks real feelings.
The Risks of Over-Reliance on AI
While AI can be helpful, it is not infallible. Some chatbots generate false information, a phenomenon known as “hallucinating.” Researchers have documented cases where AI creates fake health studies or offers misleading advice. Mental health professionals worry that some individuals might turn to AI for therapy, relying on systems that lack true empathy.
As AI becomes more integrated into daily life, it is essential to recognize its limitations and understand the broader implications of our interactions with it. Whether we say “please” and “thank you” or not, the environmental and ethical costs of AI continue to grow.