I still find it remarkable how we need such an extreme amount of electrical energy to power large modern AI models.

Compare with one human brain. Far more sophisticated, even beyond our knowledge. What does it take to power it for a day? Some vegetables and rice. Still fine for a while if you supply pure junk food -- it'll still perform.

Clearly we have a long, long way to go in terms of the energy efficiency of AI approaches. Our so-called neural nets clearly don't resemble the energy efficiency of actual biological neurons.