Adding words to our chatbot can apparently cost tens of millions of dollars. But some fear the cost of not saying please or thank you could be higher.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said on social media last week that saying “please” and “thank you” to ChatGPT has cost the company quite a bit of money.

Altman responded to a user on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, who was curious how much money OpenAI has lost in electricity costs from people showing good manners to their AI models.

“Tens of millions of dollars well spent–you never know,” was the CEO’s response.

Generative AI is widely seen as a heavy consumer of energy, particularly when it comes to training models.

Kurtis Beavers, a director on the design team for Microsoft Copilot, said in a Microsoft WorkLab memo that “using basic etiquette when interacting with AI” helps generate “respectful, collaborative outputs.”

Beavers said in the memo that generative AI also mirrors the levels of professionalism, clarity and detail in the prompts you provide. Beavers added that being polite to your AI chatbot “not only ensures you get the same graciousness in return, but it also improves the AI’s responsiveness and performance.”