@danilo While I agree with your overall point, the Jevons paradox applies. The cost of energy is the primary limiting factor for both AI and cloud compute. As its efficiency goes up, its power consumption won't go down; instead they'll just do more AI, and the total power consumption will almost certainly rise. So arguments about the per operation cost won't hold up, but arguments about total energy and water consumption will. So I guess it will depend on how people think about the total utility of AI versus other energy-using endeavors.
danilo