THE AMERICA ONE NEWS
Jun 1, 2025  |  
0
 | Remer,MN
Sponsor:  QWIKET 
Sponsor:  QWIKET 
Sponsor:  QWIKET: Elevate your fantasy game! Interactive Sports Knowledge.
Sponsor:  QWIKET: Elevate your fantasy game! Interactive Sports Knowledge and Reasoning Support for Fantasy Sports and Betting Enthusiasts.
back  
topic
NYTimes
New York Times
24 Apr 2025
Sopan Deb


NextImg:Saying ‘Thank You’ to Chat GPT Is Costly. But Maybe It’s Worth the Price.

The question of whether to be polite to artificial intelligence may seem a moot point — it is artificial, after all.

But Sam Altman, the chief executive of the artificial intelligence company OpenAI, recently shed light on the cost of adding an extra “Please!” or “Thank you!” to chatbot prompts.

Someone posted on X last week: “I wonder how much money OpenAI has lost in electricity costs from people saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ to their models.”

The next day, Mr. Altman responded: “Tens of millions of dollars well spent — you never know.”

First thing’s first: Every single ask of a chatbot costs money and energy, and every additional word as part of that ask increases the cost for a server.

Neil Johnson, a physics professor at George Washington University who has studied artificial intelligence, likened extra words to packaging used for retail purchases. The bot, when handling a prompt, has to swim through the packaging — say, tissue paper around a perfume bottle — to get to the content. That constitutes extra work.

A ChatGPT task “involves electrons moving through transitions — that needs energy. Where’s that energy going to come from?” Dr. Johnson said, adding, “Who is paying for it?”


Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.


Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber? Log in.

Want all of The Times? Subscribe.