Artificial Intelligence hunger is insatiable. It’s always hungry for more data and more information in the digital realm. On the physical side, powering AI machines and services requires huge amounts of energy and space. Huge data warehouses are needed to accommodate the machines providing AI services to people. Technology equipment fills the warehouses. They require lots of electricity to operate. Yet, these are only some of the costs behind the scenes.
Beyond AI’s appetite, it’s curious to think about how it’s changed our own longings. The power and potential of AI has filled us with new kinds of yearnings. A different kind of greed to have things instantly that once might have seemed unattainable. With the power of Generative AI, it’s possible for anyone to produce a book, or an artistic work in mere minutes. This can happen even without any talent, training, or skill. All one needs is the ability to create a good prompt.
It always reminds me of a certain character I’ve read about in myths and folktales. Each culture describes it differently, but the underlying intent is similar. In Asian cultures, the portrayal is sometimes as a hungry ghost. Nothing is ever enough to fill or satisfy this being’s intense emotional needs. Some Indigenous cultures call the being Wendingo. Essentially it’s a creature with an insatiable hunger. The more the creature eats, the hungrier it gets.
Are we collectively, as a society, headed in this direction by placing so much energy into AI? The longer AI is around and continues to advance, our uses for it also continue to swell. Or rather, our desires grow, even if it never becomes a reality. Though many places want to use AI, sometimes the service cost can be prohibitive, especially when compared with the perceived savings. And yet, we continue to lust after the potentials of AI.
AI’s insatiable hunger for more information, more data, more electricity, more space, more everything is transferring to us. We also want more analysis, more creations, more automation, more insights, more everything that we think AI is promising us. However, everything comes at a cost. Will our societal cost be satisfaction? Will we ever feel full again?