Saying ‘Thank You’ to ChatGPT Is Costly. But Maybe It’s Worth the Price.

The question of whether to be polite to artificial intelligence may seem a moot point — it is artificial, after all.

But Sam Altman, the chief executive of the artificial intelligence company OpenAI, recently shed light on the cost of adding an extra “Please!” or “Thank you!” to chatbot prompts.

Someone posted on X last week: “I wonder how much money OpenAI has lost in electricity costs from people saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ to their models.”

The next day, Mr. Altman