Sam Altman: Users' polite language on ChatGPT costs OpenAI millions of dollars in energy

according to Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, the computational power and electricity consumed by users using polite phrases such as "please" and "thank you" to ChatGPT are causing OpenAI to lose millions of dollars. Engineers like Carl Youngblood believe that "being polite to AI is a moral obligation, and rude daily interactions can lead to a degradation of interpersonal skills." Epoch AI data analyst Josh You stated that, due to improvements in model and hardware efficiency by 2025, each ChatGPT query consumes about 0.3 watt-hours of electricity, so polite phrases do not generate too much energy consumption.

According to a Future survey in December 2024, 67% of American users will be polite to AI assistants, with 55% believing it is the right thing to do and 12% doing so out of concern for AI "holding grudges." These users are worried that in the future, AI will treat humans differently based on historical interaction attitudes once it develops consciousness.