In a recent interaction on X (formerly Twitter), Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, humorously responded to a user who asked if saying "please" and "thank you" to ChatGPT had any effect. Altman revealed that these courtesies generate an additional expense of "tens of millions of dollars" in electricity for the company.
Are there any advantages to being polite with ChatGPT?
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Smoother interaction. Although it doesn't improve the technical quality of the responses, using polite language can influence the model to respond in a more cordial, formal, or empathetic tone.
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Positive digital culture. Promotes good communication practices, even when dealing with digital tools.
Disadvantages from an economic point of view
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Increased computational load. Additional expressions such as "please" or "thank you" are processed as tokens, which increases the workload for the servers.
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Energy and environmental costs. On a large scale, these small additions generate more energy consumption, which translates into higher operating costs and a potential environmental impact.
Being polite to ChatGPT doesn't change the information it provides, but it can soften its response. However, even these subtle nuances come at a cost when multiplied by millions of users.