SAN FRANCISCO, April 21 -- Turns out your mum was right about minding your manners - even if you're just talking to a chatbot.

OpenAI CEO and resident AI whisperer Sam Altman has confirmed that all those extra "pleases" and "thank yous" you've been throwing at ChatGPT are racking up quite the electricity bill.

How much exactly? Oh, just tens of millions of dollars. But don't worry - he says it's money well spent.

Altman was responding to a cheeky question on X (formerly Twitter) about whether all the polite chatter was draining OpenAI's wallet.

His response? "Tens of millions of dollars well spent. You never know."

While it might seem a bit silly to say "thank you" to an algorithm, some folks in the AI design world think there's real...