Original poster seeks to articulate that the real cost of AI (whether dollars or energy budget) is best understood not by the price on the sticker alone: tasks

Original poster seeks to articulate that the real cost of AI (whether dollars or energy budget) is best understood not by the price on the sticker alone: tasks not performed by AI might be performed another way, or other tasks might be performed in their stead. Those tasks also have costs. Economic analysis of this should take that into account, and deal with the marginal cost. Original poster laments the lack of models (not AI models) of the alternatives, models that would be used in any well structured attempt to assess this marginal cost. Poster then offers fragments of a parallel scenario (in which he drives his car) and in which models might also be used. Details of this scenario are not clear to me, but presumably there was some alternative? Unclear.