Sam Altman says politeness to ChatGPT costs millions, but worth it
Altman made the remark on X, after a user jokingly asked how much the company loses in electricity costs due to users being overly polite. His response? “Tens of millions of dollars well spent.” He also added, “You never know.”
ADVERTISEMENT
If you’re someone who types “please” and “thank you” when chatting with AI, you’re not alone — but those small courtesies are adding up. According to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, the polite way people talk to ChatGPT is costing the company “tens of millions of dollars” in computing power.
Altman made the remark on X, after a user jokingly asked how much the company loses in electricity costs due to users being overly polite. His response? “Tens of millions of dollars well spent.” He also added, “You never know.”
While it may seem unnecessary to use manners with a machine, some AI designers argue it can have a meaningful impact. Microsoft design manager Kurtis Beavers told Futurism that being polite “helps generate respectful, collaborative outputs.” Essentially, when users are courteous, the AI often responds in the same tone.
A memo from Microsoft WorkLab supports this idea, noting that generative AI systems tend to mirror the professionalism and tone of the prompts they receive. So, if you're respectful, your AI assistant is more likely to be respectful in return.
A recent survey in the US found that 67% of users say they’re polite to their AI tools. Most said it was simply the right thing to do, but 12% admitted they were being cautious — just in case there’s an AI uprising one day.
Altman also revealed that ChatGPT is on its way to reaching one billion users. Speaking to TED’s Chris Anderson on 11 April, Altman said the last public figure was 500 million weekly active users — but that number has climbed quickly.
He estimated the figure is now closer to 800 million, noting, “Something like 10 percent of the world uses our systems now, a lot.” (Forbes, 2025)
Part of this growth has come from viral features like ChatGPT’s image and video generation tools. One especially popular update, “Ghibli mode” — inspired by Japan’s Studio Ghibli — helped the platform gain a million new users in just one hour, Altman posted on 31 March.
