In a reply on social media platform X (formerly Twitter), a user jokingly asked how much the company is spending because people are polite to the AI chatbot. Sam Altman responded, “Tens of millions of dollars well spent.” The comment has now started a wider discussion on how small inputs like “please” and “thanks” are contributing to massive costs behind the scenes.

Why Politeness Costs Money

When users talk to ChatGPT, every word they type is processed by powerful AI models running in data centers. These centers require huge amounts of energy to power and cool the machines. So even if someone adds just a “please” or “thank you,” that’s extra data that needs to be understood and responded to.

It may seem like a small addition, but when millions of people are doing this every day, the extra words lead to higher electricity usage, greater server load, and more operational cost.

What Sam Altman Said

Sam Altman responded with, “Tens of millions of dollars well spent.” This shows that while the cost is high, OpenAI still sees value in making conversations with AI feel natural and respectful, even if it means higher energy bills.

He followed up with a cryptic “you never know,” which some online users joked was a sign to keep being nice in case AI takes over one day.

How AI Conversations Work

ChatGPT runs on these super powerful language models that are hosted in massive data centers, all powered by GPUs (Graphics Processing Units). These GPUs are built to crunch all the crazy computations needed for natural language processing, but here’s the catch that they are quite power-hungry.

Every time you chat with ChatGPT, it’s processing your input, figuring out a response, and sending it back. Even a short phrase like “thanks” leads to a new response from ChatGPT, which means more tokens are generated, and more electricity is used. Multiply that across millions of users, and the costs skyrocket.

After Sam Altman’s comment, users on X had a mix of funny and serious reactions. Some joked that being polite to ChatGPT was their way of staying safe if AI ever takes control.

One user wrote, “Gotta respect our future rulers.” Another said, “Respectfully Sam we don’t care, chatty deserves respect.”

Others pointed out that the issue could be fixed by using local responses (like pre-programmed replies such as “you’re welcome”) to save on energy and cost.

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