Politeness in the AI Revolution might feel harmless—until you realize it’s costing the planet. A simple “thank you” or “please” typed into ChatGPT may seem like a gesture of good manners—or maybe a last-ditch effort to stay on good terms when AI inevitably takes over. But what if your civility comes with an unexpected environmental cost?
It all started with a tongue-in-cheek question on X (formerly Twitter): “I wonder how much money OpenAI has lost in electricity costs from people saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ to their models.” To everyone’s surprise, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman chimed in, revealing that those polite exchanges have added up to “tens of millions of dollars well spent.”
That’s right your digital decorum is burning through real-world energy. And while Altman’s tone suggested he wasn’t too concerned, the question sparked a deeper conversation.
Is Being Polite to AI Necessary in the Age of the AI Revolution?
According to Kurt Beavers, a director on Microsoft Copilot’s design team, it’s more than just etiquette. “Using polite language sets a tone for the response,” he explained. When AI picks up on kindness, it tends to mirror that tone. In other words, saying “please” really might make your AI assistant nicer.
That’s fascinating on a psychological and design level but what about on an environmental one?
The AI Revolution’s Hidden Energy Cost Behind Every Keystroke
Every interaction with AI consumes electricity. From processing your input to generating that neatly worded response, vast data centers are working around the clock drawing power, producing heat, and contributing to carbon emissions.
Now multiply that by millions (even billions) of conversations per day. A few extra polite words in each message might not seem like much but scaled globally, it’s a different story. The politeness epidemic may actually be contributing to the digital carbon footprint in a non-trivial way.
How the AI Revolution Is Driving Soaring Energy Demands
Generative AI isn’t lightweight. A recent study in Nature showed that training large models can consume as much energy as hundreds of homes do in a year. And that’s just training ongoing usage adds even more demand on the grid.
So while we’re trying to ensure AI treats us kindly with sugar-coated inputs, we may be missing the more pressing issue: whether the planet can sustain our rapidly growing dependence on such systems.
Manners vs. Meltdown: Ethics in the AI Revolution
The irony is rich. We’re programming AI to respond like our polite co-workers while possibly speeding up environmental crises in the background. Maybe those “please” and “thank you” messages will win us points in the AI future but will there still be a future for us to enjoy?So go ahead, be polite. But as we rush toward a world dominated by intelligent machines, perhaps the real courtesy is toward the planet. Maybe the most polite thing we can do is ask:
What’s the real cost of my words, and who—or what—is paying for them?