SMRTR AINov 3, 2025Quartz

Saying 'please' and 'thank you' to ChatGPT costs OpenAI millions, Sam Altman says

SMRTR summary

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed that polite interactions with ChatGPT, including saying "please" and "thank you," cost the company tens of millions of dollars in operational expenses. Each query requires significant computational power and electricity, with ChatGPT-4 using ten times more energy than a Google search. The energy demands are substantial enough that if 17 million Americans used GPT-4 weekly, it would equal Washington D.C.'s household electricity consumption for 20 days.

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