As conversational AI tools like ChatGPT become increasingly woven into everyday life, a peculiar behavioral trend has emerged: a lot of people are saying “please” and “thank you” to their AI assistants and it is costing OpenAI a lot of money. I use ChatGPT for various tasks and I thought maybe I was just a weirdo for saying please and thank you but apparently I’m not the only one.
Why Is This Generating So Much Buzz Online?
The topic has lit up social media platforms and tech forums, with users sharing screenshots of their courteous conversations with AI. Some find it endearing, others amusing, and a few even call it unnecessary. Part of the buzz stems from the mirror it holds up to society: how we engage with machines says a lot about our values, emotional wiring, and evolving relationship with technology. But beyond that, I found it fascinating to learn that this practice actually costs OpenAI millions of dollars for the processing involved.
Why People Saying ‘Please’ and ‘Thank You’ Costs OpenAI Millions
Interestingly, this surge in politeness isn’t just philosophical, it has a real financial impact. Every time a user sends a prompt to ChatGPT, even something as simple as “thank you,” it consumes compute resources. Multiply that by millions of daily users, and the cost begins to add up. According to estimates, OpenAI incurs substantial cloud infrastructure and model-serving expenses for every token processed, so yes that translates into costs of millions of dollars.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman even commented on this online, saying, “tens of millions of dollars well spent–you never know.”
Yes, I Do it Too
I’ll admit it. I almost always say “please” when I ask ChatGPT to do something and “thank you” even sometimes when I’m satisfied with the response. I’m not entirely sure why. I think it probably is just a habit built up over thew years
This trend of people saying “please” and “thank you” to ChatGPT might just be about more than just etiquette, it could reflect deeper instincts about respect, empathy, and how we adapt to new kinds of relationships, even those with machines. But even if it is just a weird simple thing, I suppose my mother can be somewhat proud that I’m at least being polite to the machines.
[mailerlite_form form_id=3]
Sapiens Forward 