> As long as it's unaccounted for by users it's at best anexternality.

Why is it an externality? Anthropic (or other model provider) pays the electricity cost, then it's passed along in the subscription or API bill. The direct cost of the energy is fully internalized in the price.

That's hardly unique to data centers.

I'm all for regulation that makes businesses pay for their externalities - I'd argue that's a key economic role that a government should play.

I don't see how this follows. Data center operators buy energy and this is almost their only operating expense. Their products are priced to reflect this. The fact that basic AI features are free reflects the fact that they use almost no energy.