The media is flooded with stories about AI and the data centres required to power it.

Every AI business case I've seen recently is built on the same promise, which is hours saved. A million hours, ten thousand hours, two hours per person per week. The number changes depending on how brave the person building the slide was feeling. 

What strikes me to date is that almost nobody has answered the second question, which is what those hours are actually for. 

That sounds like a philosophical detour, exactly the sort of thing you'd expect from a bloke who's recently discovered Heifetz and wants everyone to know about it. Fair enough, but it's also the thing that decides whether any of this works.