https://huggingface.co/blog/jdelavande/thank-you-energy is an interesting article.

What it doesn’t mention is the “exponential” cost of saying “Thank You” at the end of a long conversation… as each follow-up prompt must send the entire conversation, real world energy consumption is likely much higher than the “synthetic” Thank You on an empty context.

Personally I’m currently typically prompting LLMs like this:

1. I use “imperative” language (“do”, not “could you” nor “please”)
2. I frequently create new sessions, instead of never ending long conversations (/clear in Gemini CLI)
3. I don’t send any follow-up prompt when the task at hand is completed to my satisfaction
4. I on (pretty rare) occasions still can’t quite avoid an “oh wow, you’re awesome” 😀

Sending a “Thank You” to an LLM as the last prompt to end a conversation does not seem like a good idea energy wise.

But I’m not sold on the energy impact of using “Please” within an initial or otherwise required follow-up prompt. That 1 additional token is unlikely going to make a measurable difference (even at scale), IMHO. And sticking to polite conversation style with an inline single “please” is probably a good idea in the larger scheme of life.