Cutting polite words can cut ChatGPT's energy use by 25%

A new report from the UN University's Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) shows that cutting polite words from AI prompts can save a lot of energy. Removing words like 'please' and 'thank you' could save 87 to 98 gigawatt-hours of electricity each year, enough to power 760,000 people in sub-Saharan Africa for a year.

The study found that shorter prompts reduce the number of tokens the model needs to process and generate, and in some cases even lower task complexity, saving more power. Researcher Kaveh Madani says it's not about being rude to AI, but avoiding pointless small talk.

The report also warns that as AI becomes more popular, its use of electricity, land, and water is growing fast. It's one of the most comprehensive studies on AI's environmental costs so far.