ChatGPT’s ‘Please’ Problem: Politeness Burns $Millions at OpenAI

Turns out, good manners come with a price tag—every superfluous ‘please’ in a ChatGPT query chews through compute budgets like a hedge fund manager at a Michelin-starred lunch. OpenAI’s servers don’t care about courtesy, but your VC-backed runway might.

Since large language models like ChatGPT are billed and processed based on token usage—a system that charges by the number of words or characters processed—longer prompts result in higher computational costs.

Each interaction with a language model requires the system to process and generate tokens, which includes input (what users type) and output (the model’s response). When millions of users regularly append extra words to their inputs, the total number of tokens increases significantly, driving up operational expenses.

As AI becomes more widely adopted, both developers and users may need to rethink how to engage with these systems—politely, but efficiently.

OpenAI Countersues Elon Musk in Ongoing Legal Battle

In early April, OpenAI filed a countersuit against Elon Musk, the owner of X, intensifying an ongoing legal battle that began when Musk initiated legal action against the company the previous week.

According to a lawsuit filed on April 9 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Musk accused OpenAI of attempting to restructure itself as a public benefit corporation while maintaining its current for-profit model. The filing also claims Musk stepped away from the organization after it declined a proposed merger with Tesla, his electric vehicle and clean energy company.

The lawsuit further alleged that Musk failed to fulfill a $1 billion funding commitment to OpenAI. Instead, shortly after the launch of ChatGPT, Musk went on to establish a rival artificial intelligence venture, xAI, signaling a sharp pivot in his involvement with the AI research community.

A jury trial to resolve the ongoing legal dispute between OpenAI and Musk is set to begin in the spring of 2026. The lawsuit marks the latest chapter in a prolonged conflict between the tech entrepreneur and the AI research firm.

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Michaela has no crypto positions and does not hold any crypto assets. This article is provided for informational purposes only and should not be construed as financial advice. The Shib Magazine and The Shib Daily are the official media and publications of the Shiba Inu cryptocurrency project. Readers are encouraged to conduct their own research and consult with a qualified financial adviser before making any investment decisions.