I get that, I do. I hate to say it, but our entire civilization is about not giving a damn about resources. Cars, flying on holidays, industrialization in general I guess. Many things are a ridiculous waste of resource if you think about it.

The counter here would be, what if AI could be made efficient? Suddenly OK then? Is it truly about the resources?

Walking to the nearest farm with my horse is much, much more sustainable than maintaining a sprawling toxic civilizational level infrastructure so I can go into my car to the supermarket. I get your point, but nearly every aspect of our world is filled to the brim with mind boggling complexity and corresponding resource usage and we get used to it.