Rudeness Is Good! Don't Be Polite… Please 😃
Sam Altman said that expressions like “Please” and “Thank you” in ChatGPT conversations rack up millions of dollars in extra cost for OpenAI. 💲
Let's do a little math. 👇
ChatGPT's 4o model is priced at 2.50 USD per 1 million input tokens and 1.25 USD per 1 million output tokens. (That's the price to you, not OpenAI's own cost — but let's use these figures.)
Input-token consumption of these phrases:
- Please: 1 token · Lütfen (TR): 2 tokens
- Thank you: 2 tokens · Teşekkür ederim (TR): 5 tokens
And if you close with a thank-you, the model won't stay indifferent to your courtesy — it replies with something that burns roughly 55–60 tokens.
If you wrote in Turkish (at about 38 TRY/USD):
2 + 5 = 7 tokens → input
60 tokens → output
2.50 USD × 7 ÷ 1,000,000 ≈ 0.07 kuruş (input)
1.25 USD × 60 ÷ 1,000,000 ≈ 0.29 kuruş (output)
Total ≈ 0.36 kuruş (about a third of a Turkish cent)
60 tokens → output
2.50 USD × 7 ÷ 1,000,000 ≈ 0.07 kuruş (input)
1.25 USD × 60 ÷ 1,000,000 ≈ 0.29 kuruş (output)
Total ≈ 0.36 kuruş (about a third of a Turkish cent)
A funny figure on its own. But once you picture millions of people around the world doing this, over and over… Sam Altman may have a point after all. 😀
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