Whatever your view on AI and data usage, this is not an acceptable reason to arrest someone. I do view that we are taking just brute force too far, we need to pause and reconsider energy usage and waste and refocus on the algorithms to be more efficient first. Our focus should not just be the Jeremy Clarkson method of more power.
From the perspective of the data centre guys, efficiency gains make (over)spend on data centres even more worthwhile. The more efficiency gains there are the more work the datacentres can do, and the more money they make.