Sam Altman: Using "please" and "thank you" costs us more than you think.

In a surprising statement, Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, revealed the significant costs incurred by his company due to using simple words like "please" and "thank you" when interacting with conversational robots like ChatGPT. Altman responded to a user's question on the X platform (formerly Twitter), stating that these polite phrases cost the company tens of millions of dollars, and the actual costs may be even higher. But why do these phrases cost this amount? The answer lies in the complex calculations required by artificial intelligence to process each phrase "please" or "thank you." Each interaction requires high processing power from massive data centers that consume huge amounts of electricity. Additionally, these facilities need continuous cooling to maintain servers from excessive heat, further increasing energy consumption. Despite these high costs, Altman did not ask users to stop using these polite phrases. He described these expenses as "justifiable costs," emphasizing that some experts believe using polite language improves the quality of responses from artificial intelligence. According to Curtis Beavers, design director at Microsoft, using polite phrases helps deliver more respectful and collaborative outputs, significantly influencing the tone of responses provided by artificial intelligence. A study by Microsoft's WorkLab confirms that artificial intelligence tends to mimic the level of professionalism and accuracy present in the questions or instructions it receives, contributing to improving conversation quality. Nevertheless, experts clarify that artificial intelligence does not possess real intelligence as some may think; it is simply an advanced tool that uses predictions to generate interconnected responses based on the inputs it receives. Despite the significant environmental cost of this technology, using polite phrases in interacting with artificial intelligence remains valuable in enhancing conversation quality.