OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has revealed in a tweet on X that polite courtesies with ChatGPT, such as “please” and “thank you,” have cost the company tens of millions of dollars in electricity expenses.
I wonder how much money OpenAI has lost in electricity costs from people saying “please” and “thank you” to their models.
— tomie (@tomieinlove) April 15, 2025
The computing efforts required for polite language interaction are quite significant, which leads to increased energy consumption in AI data centres. While Altman has spoken about the electricity costs the company incurs, it raises a more substantial issue: the environmental impact of AI tools.
According to data provided by Semrush, ChatGPT has ranked as the eighth most visited site in the world as of March 2025, with approximately 5.56 billion visits. Research shows that every question potentially uses around 10 times more electricity than a simple Google search, with an average of 2.9 watt-hours of energy.
UK-based energy supplier Business Energy UK states that data servers consume a significant amount of energy to train AI models and then process user demands. It added that even a small data centre can use up to 18,000 gallons of water per day, while large-scale data centres, such as Google’s, can consume up to 5,50,000 gallons daily.
ChatGPT also runs a large number of calculations that are housed in data centres, which generate heat. Water systems are used as cooling equipment and keep the servers functioning.
According to The Washington Post, data centres are one of the largest consumers of water in the locations where they are situated. Centres with electrical cooling systems also increase residents’ energy bills and strain the power grid. AIM reported that ChatGPT consumes the energy equivalent of powering 17,000 houses in the US per day.
In another report, AIM highlighted that a 2027 projection shows that the world’s demand for AI will lead to significant water withdrawal, including both temporary and permanent sourcing of freshwater from underground or surface, which could be detrimental to the environment.
Despite its massive impact on the environment and finances, some tech experts argue that using polite language enhances the user experience.
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