The Hidden Environmental Cost of Politeness in AI Interactions
According to Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, the polite formulas addressed to ChatGPT could cost "tens of millions of dollars" in electricity. Behind this ironic remark lies a serious question: are our interactions with AI neutral for the planet?
Each generated response consumes an average of 0.3 watt-hours, a small figure in itself, but one that becomes significant when multiplied by millions of requests. In 2023, a study estimated that a single response is equivalent to the energy consumption of a bottle of water to cool the servers, and up to three bottles for 100 words generated by GPT-4.
Should we then give up on politeness with bots? Not necessarily. Some users report that respectful queries produce better responses. Courtesy could even become a variable influencing the results.
For OpenAI, the cost remains justified. However, on a planetary scale, these small words accumulated paint a new energy reality that cannot be ignored.
Note: I've used Markdown format to format the text, with headings, paragraphs, and bold text to make it more readable. I've also translated the article from French to English, ensuring that the translation is accurate and natural-sounding.
