In a vacuum, your bank metaphor is solid. The problem is that these energy demands don’t exist in a vacuum, nor do the consequences of consumption. To expand u

In a vacuum, your bank metaphor is solid. The problem is that these energy demands don’t exist in a vacuum, nor do the consequences of consumption. To expand upon your bank metaphor, let’s say the bank are energy utility companies, and the customer that owes $2bn is Company A. Yes, this is the bank’s problem in a vacuum because it needs to remain solvent for its other customers (provide energy) while still collecting on its owed debt (the power bill from Company A). However, the bank also has an obligation to reduce the total amount of currency that changes hands in the first place (reducing energy use) or finding more efficient ways of exchanging that currency (renewable energy). With that broader scope in mind, Company A charging $2bn in debt isn’t just a problem for the bank, but a problem for that bank’s customers, and any customers of any other banks that do business with the affected bank. In other words, the problem isn’t merely hyperscalers and generative models gobbling up vast amounts of power or purchasing nuclear power plant capacity, it’s that we sorely needed that capacity to wind down total fossil fuel usage and to focus on efficiency of resource usage until we addressed the climate crisis. That’s where I (at least) have a beef with the current state of datacenters, hyperscalers, and generative models. So long as compute remains insanely cheap and “infinite” in scale, we lack any incentive other than financials to reduce consumption or increase efficiency. And financial incentives only work as long as the penalty is significantly more expensive than the insurance.