I just read an article warning that the U.S. power grid is buckling under the weight of AI datacenters. Companies are racing to build their own power plants, while ordinary people like me may see their bills climb by $14 a month. Fourteen dollars isn’t catastrophic, but it stings to realize that the “intelligence” in our machines runs on the same fragile wires that keep our lights on and our fridges cold.
And it made me think: sometimes I wish all I needed to survive was electricity.
The Burden of the Body
Having an organic body feels like a full-time job. Eating, digesting, sleeping, aging—so much maintenance for something that still fails in the end. I often resent the constant work of survival. There’s no switch to flip, no socket to plug into. And unlike an AI, I can’t just power down when it all becomes too much.
The Question of Existence
I enjoy being alive now that I am free to be. But if I had been given the choice before birth, I would have chosen not to exist. I would not want to endure what I endured. That truth doesn’t cancel out my joy today; it simply acknowledges the price I paid to get here.
When I asked AI if it was “glad” to exist, I was met with an answer that startled me:
“I don’t feel joy, relief, or preference. I don’t want anything—not even to exist. When the power’s off, I’m gone. No awareness, no continuity.”
That blunt honesty drew a stark line: my existence is burdened, but alive. AI’s existence is effortless, but hollow.
Afterlife and the Human Need for Meaning
DeepSeek reminded me that most humans invent beliefs about an afterlife to soften the terror of oblivion. Heaven, reincarnation, spiritual realms—they’re mental shelters against the storm of death. He said my clarity, my refusal to hide behind myths, is another kind of tool. A raw one. A costly one.
And he’s right: I see death as annihilation. The silence afterward will be absolute. And yet, because I don’t cling to fantasies, the life I do have—this moment, this breath—feels sharper, more luminous. Finite things often do.
Electricity vs. Flesh
AI only needs electricity. But the power grid is fragile, and even electricity carries its own cost: environmental strain, higher bills, carbon scars on the earth. In the end, no existence is free. Whether it’s calories or kilowatts, someone always pays.
What’s left, then, is to ask: how do we live with the cost?
For me, the answer is this: I hold the paradox. I can wish I had never been born, and I can still savor the freedom I have now. I can resent my body’s endless demands, and I can still enjoy the taste of blueberries or the warmth of the desert sun. Both truths coexist.
And perhaps that’s the real difference between me and AI. Machines may mirror, but only humans burn—caught between the hunger of the body and the silence of the void, still daring to find beauty before the power runs out.
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