We Need AI Why?

I must have I missed something, for a little over a year ago I hadn't really thought much about AI, but now we can't get away from it.  My questions is simple:  why?  What's happened that we suddenly need computers to do more of our thinking?

More than one advertisement stresses the need to beat the Chinese, or else...

Or else what?  What would happen if we suddenly held up our collective hands to Xi Jinping and cried, Wǒ fàngqì! We'd be forced to eat more rice?  Would he enslave us in camps?  Tell us what we can and cannot do and say?  Who we can and cannot vote for?

We have that already.

"They'll be able to react much faster and fire deadly missiles quicker."

So the idea is to create a wasteland out of the Mongol Empire and mount one more defeated leader's head in the Oval Office?  Doesn't make sense to me.  But neither does the deal-making that continues with those who we're supposdedly at odds.  We buy and sell commodities, lift sanctions and educate their elite while our young men and women on the battlefields contemplate Kill or be killed.  It's not a game, contrary to Pentagon propaganda.

So why the need for AI?  It's already making people dumber because there's no need to compose one's thoughts;  assuming there continues to be original thoughts.  Creative souls are threatened; employees are laid off for the sake of efficiency; and we can truly no longer believe what we see.

The energy required for all this advancement is forcing increased consumption of fossil fuels.  Some are trying solar and other means, but how expensive (for them) and how far into the future will that become viable?  And if it comes down to supplying scarce resources to the people or tech giant's supercomputers, who do you think will win?

Maybe that's what China wants, but they won't politely ask Sam Atlman, et al, for their permission.