No, AI won’t use all the electricity

Plus: Donald Trump's coronation and more [Bloomberg]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a [beautiful cabin crew]( of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Must-Reads - [AI won’t use]( all the electricity. - The GOP prepares for [a coronation](. - Stop hiding the [vice president](. - [Earnings growth]( is broadening. AI’s Energy Demands Are Being Overstated Ah, artificial intelligence. Is it going to keep getting smarter, use up all the electricity and render humanity irrelevant? Or is it already maxing out with the [surreal images]( of flight attendants, Jesus and sharks (and sometimes [all three]() that have taken over Facebook? The correct answer is surely closer to the former than the latter, but it does look like we’re currently headed for the “trough of disillusionment” (or, perhaps more accurately, yet another of many such troughs) in the AI [hype cycle](. In the [classic model]( from consulting firm Gartner, this trough is followed by the “slope of enlightenment” and the “plateau of productivity,” but sometimes the disillusionment sticks. An example Liam Denning cites is Web 3.0 — the much-heralded blockchain-enabled reconstruction of the internet that just doesn’t seem to be happening. Liam’s [column]( addresses the widely held belief that AI’s rapacious electricity demands represent a major challenge and opportunity for utilities. His verdict: maybe, but don’t believe the utilities’ projections of how much power AI data centers will need, because utilities have built-in incentives to overestimate future demand. Even if the current AI wave doesn’t disappoint, he writes, the energy intensity of generative AI technologies is likely to decline simply because the financial incentives to reduce energy use are so strong. A quarter century ago, some were [predicting]( that the rise of the internet would bring an explosion in electricity demand. Instead, computers, and especially the data centers on which the internet resides became vastly more energy-efficient, and overall electricity use held steady. Which is encouraging news for AI: As Dave Lee [wrote]( earlier in the week, doubts about the ability to turn a profit selling current AI services to people and businesses have been growing in Silicon Valley. Cutting AI’s energy use would cut its costs, increasing the odds that investments in AI startups pay off. Bonus AI-related reading: Tech titans such as OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Alphabet Inc.’s Larry Page are excited about the potential for enhancing human intelligence and performance through AI and other new technologies. Parmy Olson [thinks]( the rest of us should be skeptical of the techno-optimist confidence that such efforts will turn out for the best: “Utopia could come with a price, ... eroding human agency and perhaps even worsening inequality.” Republicans Prepare for a Coronation As Democrats hog the headlines with the will-he-or-won’t-he (even though he keeps saying he will) drama over Joe Biden’s bid for a second term, the GOP will hold a convention next week in Milwaukee that, Mary Ellen Klas [writes](, “will be as close to a coronation as anything we’ve seen in the nation’s history.” It’s going to be pretty much all Donald Trump and his priorities all the time. Primary challenger Nikki Haley won’t be speaking because, Trump said this week, she didn’t drop out of the race early enough. Staffers have all had to attest that the 2020 election was stolen. The party platform has been rewritten in Trump’s voice, “including his bizarre capitalization conventions and excessive use of exclamation points.” I’m guessing the Biden drama will continue to hog headlines during the convention, though, infuriating both Trump and those who wish the media would focus more attention on his verbal missteps and outrageous statements. Whether Biden stays or goes, Patricia Lopez believes his campaign is [massively underutilizing]( vice president and likely replacement Kamala Harris. Harris has been making far fewer public appearances than First Lady Jill Biden — perhaps, Patricia writes, because “a far younger, more dynamic running mate barnstorming the country could easily show up an octogenarian president.” But the Democrats need a visible, prominent Harris even if Biden stays in the race. Telltale Charts The stock market’s strong performance since late 2022 has relied, to an extreme and probably unhealthy extent, on the “[Magnificent Seven](” tech companies. But Jonathan Levin [says that’s changing](, with the non-Magnificent members of the Standard and Poor’s 500 Index now projected to increase earnings again after a period of declines. This broadening of earnings growth is a positive sign for the market, even as the extremely high valuations of the Magnificent Seven stocks spark concern. Thursday’s [wonderfully benign]( US inflation report isn’t the only reason the Federal Reserve should cut interest rates soon. The US labor market is showing clear signs of trouble, Richard Abbey and John Authers [point out](, with a steady increase in the unemployment rate over the past year and a sharp increase this spring in the number of Americans unemployed for 15 weeks or longer. Further Reading Nuclear energy [gets a boost](. — Bloomberg’s editorial board A [$4 trillion bond salesman]( retires. — Marcus Ashworth LVMH has already [won gold](. — Andrea Felsted Health care will [get more litigious](. — Lisa Jarvis [Dealmaking props up]( bank earnings. — Paul J. Davies ICYMI [Consumer sentiment falls]( to eight-month low. AT&T hit by massive [customer-data hack](. Pity the short sellers, [says short seller](. Kickers Trader Joe’s bagel seasoning is [illegal in South Korea](. (h/t Andrea Felsted) [Angela Merkel](, Italian TV detective. (h/t Lisa Jarvis) Meet the [queen of the rideshare mafia](.  Notes:  Please send feedback but not Facebook AI slop to Justin Fox at [justinfox@bloomberg.net](mailto:hchuaeoan@bloomberg.net). [Sign up here]( and follow us on [Instagram](, [TikTok](, [Twitter]( and [Facebook](. Follow Us Like getting this newsletter? [Subscribe to Bloomberg.com]( for unlimited access to trusted, data-driven journalism and subscriber-only insights. 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