One of the stories of the year is the tremendously fast growing demand for electricity due to the insanely fast development of data centers for the whole AI Era of Wonder. In regions around the country, electricity prices are spiking because giant data centers need so much electricity to power Big Tech’s AI dreams. Billions of dollars are being spent every month on AI tools and constant neural net processing. But it’s always got to be more, more, more. Yes, AI is apparently being used to more quickly and accurately identify health issues (or so I hear). Yes, it is being used to improve transportation and model climate change scenarios. That’s great, but we don’t all need AI all the time for everything … do we? That’s the idea. And it’s an idea now being pushed by SpaceX (yes, SpaceX). Gopuff and SpaceXAI (a new division of SpaceX following the acquisition of xAI) have launched Go. Part of the Gopuff app and powered by Grok, Elon Musk’s AI assistant developed at X, what this brilliant new critically important AI system does is … make your shopping list for you. It “predicts what you need before you even start searching for it,” as Gene at Teslarati writes. “Gopuff is an instant delivery platform that operates more than 400 micro-fulfillment centers across the U.S., delivering everyday essentials, snacks, drinks, and household items in as little as 15 minutes. It is not a restaurant delivery app or a marketplace. It owns its inventory, controls its warehouses, and handles its own logistics, which means it has built one of the most detailed consumer behavior datasets in retail over its 13-year history.” Throwing all of the SpaceXAI slop in there with it, the idea is that the app can create your shopping list for you so that you don’t have to think about what you need. Thank goodness. We sure don’t want humans to have to think for themselves in this new AI world. Can we also just send our car and a humanoid robot out to pick up our groceries for us? “It learns each shopper’s habits and automatically builds a personalized cart based on time of day, location, order history, and real-time indicators.” That’s the idea, anyway. I hope it’s not like my Tesla’s similarly predictive navigation system, which can identify the simplest of patterns but also throws all kinds of nonsense navigation ideas onto the screen. Frankly, it’s far worse that I ever expected it could be, and it would be nice if it just stopped trying. But I digress. Gene tells us that it can also create a shopping list based on different themes. “Rather than searching for specific items, users can describe a situation like a game-day party or the desire for a healthy breakfast and Go will assemble a cart automatically.” Hmm … well, maybe it would work for Homer Simpson, but I somehow don’t think that my exact preferences for a game-day party or healthy breakfast would be the same as what the AI slop machine comes up with. Just a hunch. The pitch sounds good, though, right? Let’s let AI do everything that requires thinking! Does it matter if we double electricity demand, explode our CO2 budget, pump a ton more pollution into the air, and spike our electricity bills? Nah. AI will deal with it. Just leave it to old Mr. Musk, psycho Thiel, egghead Andreessen, and Botox-loving Bezos. “Today, we believe the greatest friction left in commerce is not delivery or instantaneous access to the essentials customers need. It’s the moment before: the thinking, the deciding, the remembering. We’re combining Gopuff’s demand intelligence with xAI’s frontier reasoning to create an everyday shopping experience that feels like a true extension of you,” Gopuff co-founder and co-CEO Yakir Gola says. Did he think, “What can really help the world?” Or did Gola brainstorm incessantly on “How can I make a billion dollars?” Great — more reliance on AI, less thinking, progress. How much are people losing basic research and thinking skills as they rely on AI more and more? How many kids are now relying on AI to do their homework? Some people are going to say that’s how it should be. But, really, do we need to use AI to come up with our shopping lists, plan a party, or place an order? Do we really need to keep jacking up power demand for this?