Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming how our world harnesses energy, produces goods, and carries out complex tasks that once depended on human ingenuity. At its heart, AI offers a new way to direct the use of energy without requiring the same high-wage lifestyles that human experts traditionally demand. A skilled professional such as a doctor or corporate executive may appear to consume only 100 watts to power the body or around 25 watts for the brain, yet in reality, their overall consumption extends far beyond metabolic requirements. Salaries translate into large homes, frequent travel, and an array of consumer goods, all of which command significant upstream energy inputs. By contrast, AI that runs on electricity alone bypasses much of that indirect overhead. Once trained, a single model can be duplicated across data centers, potentially outpacing the total energy efficiency of thousands of human workers whose wages would otherwise perpetuate high levels of resource use and associated carbon emissions.
In thermodynamic terms, intelligence—be it human or machine—acts as an agent accelerating the conversion of stored energy into useful work and, ultimately, entropy. Humans did this dramatically by exploiting fossil fuels on an unprecedented scale, but AI can arguably push that capability much further. Modern neural networks, powered by specialized GPUs or other accelerators, require substantial electricity for training, but if deployed wisely, they may achieve a better ratio of energy input to productive output than the traditional model of human labor. A single large language model can handle medical triage, analyze legal documents, write software, or optimize a manufacturing line, all without the web of support systems—housing, transportation, personal consumption—that humans inevitably need. This does not mean AI is inherently low-energy, but rather that the indirect lifestyle costs associated with human labor can often dwarf the electricity demands of a well-run data center.
As a result, a novel concept emerges: energy return on intelligence, where AI may eventually surpass humans in delivering high-value cognition for less net energy cost once we account for the entire life-cycle footprint of employing a human workforce. We see this vividly in tasks like image generation or text composition, where comparisons of carbon emissions suggest AI-based creation can emit orders of magnitude less CO₂ per unit of content compared to a human doing the same job. Yet whether this leads to an overall reduction of global resource consumption remains uncertain, since gains in efficiency often tempt societies to do more—sometimes provoking rebounds in energy use. Still, if AI is steered toward practical tasks that genuinely raise productivity, streamline processes, and reduce waste, it could become a powerful instrument for sustainability, especially if fueled by cleaner energy grids rather than fossil sources. AI thereby offers an opportunity to decouple economic expansion from runaway energy consumption, provided that growth aims for quality and well-being rather than sheer volume of output.
On the human side, the rise of AI raises deeper questions about the purpose of work and the distribution of resources. In an age when machines can handle ever-larger portions of both manual and knowledge-based tasks, societies must redefine how and why people earn a living. Historically, specialized professionals have harnessed their intelligence to capture a significant share of the overall energy budget by way of wages, but widespread AI may destabilize that arrangement. Freed from labor obligations, some individuals might devote themselves to creative endeavors, immersive experiences, or community building, possibly leading to a cultural shift away from endless material consumption. Others might struggle with the loss of traditional roles and identities if no social framework replaces the norms of the work-centered life. The key will be to channel AI’s tremendous cognitive capacity so it enhances human experiences, addresses ecological constraints, and relieves drudgery—rather than simply reinforcing existing inequalities or escalating resource usage. In that sense, artificial intelligence carries within it both the potential to enable a more harmonious balance with our finite planet and the risk of turbocharging entropy if left to pure market forces. The challenge for humanity is to guide AI development in a direction that treasures purpose, fosters creative exploration, and consciously reduces the indirect energy overhead that has, for too long, been taken for granted as the cost of intellect.
