Many chefs I know get upset at me when I tell them this. But this is the truth: If you can’t cook everything you make in a microwave thats a skill issue. You need to learn now because when everything is cooked in a microwave you’ll be out of a job. When microwaves are everywhere you’ll be so far behind you’ll never learn how to use a microwave. Chefs who use tools besides microwaves are luddites. They live in fear of the future.

The back and forth over the energy consumption of consumer AI is interminable. Researchers regularly update the predicted costs, AI luminaries (like Sam Altman) counter with internal figures but decline to explain how they were calculated, lay people chime in with cocktail napkin calculations (to which I won’t bother linking), and commentators conclude that there are actually more interesting things to talk about.

But there’s a relatively easy way to cut through all that noise. Instead of meekly asking AI companies for transparent data, we can take stock of how much energy they expect to use by looking at where they’re putting their money.