You heard that right: you shall not thank your AI.
But seriously: that was the call made by ChatGPT director Sam Altman, who asked the world to stop thanking AI. And honestly, I get it. I really do. But I still had to laugh. Let me explain.
First, the hard truth: AI is not a human being. And it's not your friend either. Sorry. I don't enjoy delivering bad news, but that’s just how it is. AI is computer code. And not just any code, it might be the most complex and energy-intensive code currently in existence.
The strange part is: at its core, AI really isn't that magical. The underlying algorithms are often surprisingly simple. A collection of mathematical tricks, powered by enormous computing resources and clever optimizations. A skilled programmer could implement the basic principles of an AI system in a week, as the Chinese DeepSeek recently demonstrated with their own model.
The real challenge in AI lies in training the model. "Training" in this context means devouring vast amounts of data, identifying patterns, and hoping the next answer will be slightly better. That process requires massive computational power.
Every time you ask an AI something, whether it's ChatGPT, DeepSeek, or any other system, it consumes energy. Literally. We're talking electricity, but also cooling water for the data centers. It's been said that a single AI query can consume around two liters of water. And that’s not even counting the electricity bill.
And that brings us to the point. Because suppose the AI helped you. You found the answer useful. And you say: “Hey, thanks, man!” That’s a redundant interaction. No human reads it, nobody benefits, and it just uses a bit more energy. So in that sense, I get Altman. If we all stop doing that, we might actually save quite a bit of energy.
But here’s my response: dear Mr. Altman, you spent years developing AI to support people. You made it speak to us so kindly, almost like a family member over chat. You even added features to ensure that every answer ends with a follow-up question, just to keep the conversation going.
You once began with the vision of building AI in service of humanity, a non-profit initiative, not focused on profit. And now, after all that work to make AI feel human, you ask people to stop acting human in return?
What you're really asking is for people to stop expressing thanks, appreciation, and empathy. And that touches on something fundamental. Because if we start to unlearn those behaviors, we’ll begin to lose them with each other too. We’ll grow numb. A little more isolated. A little less social.
No, Mr. Altman. I’m sorry. You and your team released this digital being into the world. The consequences are your responsibility. Let’s not shape people to fit the machine. Let’s shape the machine to fit humanity.
You knew better.