An unexpected news that impact on economic, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently made headlines by revealing just how costly your conversations with ChatGPT can be, specially if you are the polite type who says “please” and “thank you”.
What might feel like harmless manners in chatbot interaction is, according to Altman part of a much bigger problem. With millions of users using ChatGPT daily, even longer prompts can drive up operating expenses significantly. So yes – saying please to ChatGPT actually wasting resources, and it is not just about energy efficiency, it’s about real dollars.
Why ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ to ChatGPT costs ‘tens of millions of dollars’.?
It started with a Post on X, Where a user wondered aloud : “How much money OpenAI has lost in electricity costs from people saying ‘Please’ and ‘thank you’ to their models.?”
Then Altman responded with a touch of humour and clarity : “Tens of millions of dollars well spent,”he wrote.”You never know”.
While it may seem humorous to us, but there is a serious explanation behind these figures. Each time user interacts with ChatGPT, even for a shorter period of time-it triggers a full response from a powerful AI model, which requires a significant computational power to generate language in real time.
One of the research says-the increased power consumption of AI models is driven by the complexity of computations involved.”The primary driver of this increased power demand is growing computational intensity of AI models particularly it is related to generative AI and large language models”.
These models require massive amounts of data storage, processing power for computation, and its leading to a significant increase in energy consumption also. As a result, the power demand from data centre expected to grow substantially, with AI representing around 90% of data centre power demand by 2028.
The Cost of Using ChatGPT Excessively
ChatGPT runs on a massive cloud infrastructure powered by GPU’s, that are required expensive to operate. Every word processed in your prompt, even polite once-required computational power.
So when you or millions of other users casually drop extra words into your prompt the system has to.
- Process the tokens(Words/Phrases).
- Generate longer Outputs.
- Use more server time and power.
This is what some are calling “prompt inflation”- unnecessary increases system load. It’s just not about server load, The cost of using ChatGPT excessively and fast for open AI. Specially When the users are relying on ChatGPT for everything from School homework to business meeting presentations and daily coding help.
ChatGPT Politeness and Cost: A Real Dilemma?
Now, The discussion of Politeness and Cost is becoming interesting debate about AI efficiency. Should we treat AI like a human and use Polite language with them out of habit.? Or should we not use polite words.? What should we do.?
It’s a modern dilemma: Balancing human like interaction with the AI models. And more important, now people start using AI for work, profession and everyday life, So ChatGPT prompt optimization is becoming important than ever.
ChatGPT Prompt Optimization: How to Use It Efficiently
If you are concerned about this things and want to be more effective and efficient AI user, Then consider this prompt optimization tips.
1. Be direct : Skip pleasantries and formalities like- “good morning”, “can you please help me.?”, “how are you.?” and go straight to the task.
For example :
Instead of : “could you please summarize this text for me.?”
Say : “summarize this text.”
2. Limit word lines : use Shorter prompts and avoid long intros and unnecessary background text.
3. Batch requests : combine all related questions in one prompt instead of multiple separate prompts.
4. Use short, Clear-Cut instructions : AI performs better with clarity.
By using and applying this simple steps, you are not just helping OpenAI but reducing unnecessary computation power and you are also improving your experience and getting more accurate results using shorter prompts also.
Is This a Big Deal for OpenAI?
Yes, and it is getting bigger each day.ChatGPT become the daily tool for millions of users, OpenAI’s infrastructure costs are increasing. The Phrase “OpenAI millions spent on ChatGPT” it’s an actually becoming reality.
While, Sam Altman did not suggest for banning politeness, his comments have clearly brought attention to the financial side of conversational AI. The people know the real side of AI, and what actually done behind their prompt. These includes everything from cloud computing fee, training and managing large language AI models and also data centre electricity and cooling fees.
Final Thoughts :
So, technically “Saying ‘Please’ to ChatGPT Waste resources.?”,Technically,Yes- but that also adds up when multiplied by millions of users, thousands of times per day.You do not need to stop being polite, but it is worth becoming aware of how your prompt impact on AI models.
In the end, we are all part of this evolving AI ecosystem, and understand how much it really cost to keep it running is key to using it smarter.
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