> Our energy grids are strained as people will pay the energy cost for having a virtual assistant and using it to improve their lives and corps having more powerful AI that strains grids further

I don't think so. Yes, energy cost is high in many places in the world, but there are places where it is cheap, either because of the government, lack of environmental regulation, and local resources.

Just as tech support has been moved off shore (and is why your tech support person has an Indian accent), running a virtual assistant can be done where it makes sense from an economic point of view. Yes, you will need to have a good data connection, and you have to move servers there, but frankly it's easier and cheaper to ship those servers from China to someplace with cheap electricity than to US or EU.

Expect a new set of countries that host AI server farms, just as there are a set of countries that operate garment manufacturing. R&D will still occur in developed countries, but 'production' will move.