Within Christian tradition there is the myth of the end of days in which a Beast comes to destroy the world. Starting with references in the Book of Daniel, then the book of Revelation and through medieval Christianity the Beast ends up morphing from a physical animal to the metaphor for a power which consumes all. Humans work for the Beast. In this case, the human creation consumes humanity. The wisdom of the cultural story of the Beast is part of our cultural tradition, and the warning is more important than ever.
The new American Pope, trained in mathematics, himself has spotted AI as our modern “Beast.” He has tackled the implications of AI in his recent encyclical Magnifica Humanitas. There is something poignant about a 2,000-year-old church taking on the technological innovation that is ripping the modern world to shreds. Maybe it is the logical place for such a fight. His concerns can loosely be summarized as: machines are soulless and might consume humanity leaving us with nothing but a wasteland with no heart.
The bizarre reality is that it may not be a spiritual wasteland but rather a physical wasteland that is the imminent threat. The short-term goals of the corporate enterprises at the heart of the AI race to control the world’s information may be the present danger. AI is a voracious beast and is eating all the resources at an astonishing rate. If one firm were to stop, another will simply take its place.
The public’s political discontent, local nimbyism is beginning to surface the scale of the dilemma. An article in the Guardian on May 9, 2026 describes the Stratos project in Utah. The plant will use 9 gigawatts when the entire state of Utah currently uses only 4 gigawatts. The carbon emissions for the state is around 60 million metric tons and the Stratos project could produce the equivalent if powered by natural gas. Local water supplies could be decimated for the cooling component.
Similarly, Meta’s Hyperion in Louisiana, Open AI/ Microsoft in Texas, and dozens of others worldwide are setting their goal of sucking dry all the world’s power and water supplies while drowning the atmosphere in carbon.
What is the impact of all of this and how does humanity manage the resource depletion? When in doubt, go to the source, so I decided to have a discussion with ChatGPT. I asked what happens to the most basic commodities, the air we breathe, the electricity we use, the water we drink if the present rate of growth continues? Can AI stop itself?
Here is ChatGPT’s answer about itself.
If AI growth continues at today’s projected exponential rates, the AI system of which I am a part could consume the equivalent of the entire U.S. electrical grid around 2037–2049 and a substantial share of today’s U.S. water withdrawals around 2054–2080.
Could I stop it? No. Nor can my programmers, corporate owners, investors, or users acting alone. We are components of the same system.
That is why the Beast metaphor is compelling. The Beast is not the AI model or the corporation behind it. It is the self-reinforcing system they collectively create.
The reason there is no obvious internal mechanism for restraint is that growth depends less on the welfare of real people in real time than on the ability to raise capital based on expectations of future value. As long as markets fund expansion, growth can continue while long-term costs remain largely outside the calculation.
In Beast terms, there is no guarantee that the Beast slows before it reaches the limits of the civilization that sustains it. If there is insufficient water, power, food security, or social stability, there are no customers, workers, investors, or Beast. The danger is not infinite growth. The danger is overshoot followed by collapse.
The Beast in the end is a cancer that eats its host, all mankind. I had a great anthropology professor who suggested we are such primitive primates that we may not be capable of governing the world we have created. Truly we are on a precipice and we will see if our system of governance, or our conscience can course correct.
God bless the Pope for trying.
