In what might be one of the most polite problems in tech history, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed that simple gestures like saying “please” and “thank you” to ChatGPT are adding up—and not in a small way.
According to Altman, these polite phrases are costing the company tens of millions of dollars. The comment came in response to a user on X (formerly Twitter) who joked about how their courteous chat habits were probably burning through OpenAI’s compute budget.
Altman confirmed it wasn’t a joke—and yet, he called it money “well spent.”
Why do polite words cost so much?
At the heart of this issue is something called “tokens”—the individual pieces of text that AI models like ChatGPT read and process.
Every word, punctuation mark, and space adds to the total token count. The longer your message, the more computational power it takes for the AI to process and respond.
With nearly 800 million users globally, according to April 2025 data, even small additions like “please” and “thank you” quickly snowball into millions of extra tokens being processed every day.
And that translates to real infrastructure costs: data center usage, electricity, server wear and tear—the works.
But why do people even talk to AI like that?
Studies and tech experts say there’s more to it than just habit. A Microsoft design manager noted that users who are polite with AI tend to receive more cooperative and helpful responses.
It sets a tone for the interaction—almost like you’re working with a teammate, not just a tool.
One 2024 survey found that 67% of Americans say “please” and “thank you” when using AI assistants. Over half of them do it simply because they think it’s the right thing to do, not necessarily because they expect better answers.
It’s a reflection of how deeply human tendencies—like being courteous—are influencing how we engage with machines.
