The Cost of Polite Conversations with Chatbots
OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman shared on social media platform X that processing various "please" and "thank you" requests costs the company tens of millions of dollars. This was reported by Futurism.
While polite communication with chatbots may seem trivial, some AI developers view it as beneficial. For instance, Microsoft’s Curtis Beavers states that proper etiquette "helps generate more useful outcomes."
A survey conducted at the end of 2024 revealed that 67% of respondents in the U.S. reported being polite when interacting with chatbots. Among them, 55% said they do it "because it’s the right thing to do," while 12% mentioned it as a way to calm the algorithm in case of an AI uprising.
Although many experts assure that the AI revolution is still far off, users’ politeness may already have tangible ecological consequences.
In an investigation by the Washington Post in collaboration with researchers from the University of California, the impact of creating a 100-word email was examined. They found that generating one email requires 0.14 kilowatt-hours of energy, enough to power 14 LED bulbs for an hour. Sending one email per week for a year would already consume 7.5 kWh.
Data centers powering these chatbots currently account for about 2% of global energy consumption, and this figure is only expected to rise.