The Daily Populous

Monday April 21st, 2025 night edition

image for Sam Altman Admits That Saying "Please" and "Thank You" to ChatGPT Is Wasting Millions of Dollars in Computing Power

OpenAI CEO and tech billionaire Sam Altman recently admitted that people politely saying "please" and "thank you" to their AI chatbots is costing him bigtime.

When one poster on X-formerly-Twitter wondered aloud "how much money OpenAI has lost in electricity costs from people saying 'please' and 'thank you' to their models," Altman chimed in, saying it's "tens of millions of dollars well spent.".

While it may seem pointless to treat an AI chatbot with respect, some AI architects say it's an important move.

Microsoft's design manager Kurtis Beavers, for example, says proper etiquette "helps generate respectful, collaborative outputs.".

One Washington Post investigation, done in collaboration with researchers at the University of California, studied the impacts of generating a 100-word email.

They found that just one email requires .14 kilowatt-hours worth of electricity, or enough to power 14 LED lights for an hour.

Now imagine the tens of thousands of lengthy prompts we're feeding chatbots like OpenAI's ChatGPT on the daily — not exactly low-impact. »

The UK Is Doubling Down on Wind Energy

Authored by oilprice.com

The U.K. is already a world leader in wind energy, having rapidly expanded both its onshore and offshore wind capacity over the last decade.

In 2023, 46.4 percent of the UK’s electricity was generated using renewable energy sources, of which wind energy contributed 61 percent.

The U.K. constructed its first commercial onshore wind farm in 1991, generating 1 GW of wind capacity. »

Chinese ambassador warns US not to repeat tariff mistakes of the Great Depression era

Authored by scmp.com
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China’s ambassador to the United States Xie Feng has said that the United States should avoid the mistakes from the Great Depression of the 1930s amid the escalating tariff war between the two countries.

Xie was speaking at a Traditional Chinese Medicine open-day event at the embassy in Washington, but he drew on ancient lore as a metaphor for the current trade dispute.

“You can’t just treat a headache by just focusing on the head or foot pain by only targeting the feet,” Xie said. »

‘Professional failures’ led to killing of Palestinian medics in Gaza, says Israeli military

Authored by cnn.com
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The Israeli military says “professional failures” led to the killing of 15 paramedics and first responders in an incident in Gaza in March, according to an investigation released Sunday.

Frame grab from a video released by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, taken with a phone by one of the 15 Palestinians medics killed on March 23, 2025.

In its initial account of the events, the Israeli military said the two Palestinians killed in the first incident were members of Hamas. »