So much of the public hates AI, at least the non-tech people I talk with. Good to see so much common sense among the general public.

While I find a Gemini Ultra subscription worthwhile for myself, most of the value is in the fun and entertainment of interacting with a strong API in AntiGravity (usually use Claude models), Gemini App, NotebookLM, etc. It is intellectually interesting and fun.

Can I justify the cost to society for data centers, possibility of US government bailing out the AI tech giants, etc.?

No I can't. I think the Chinese are skunking us. Building cheaper AI is the winning strategy. GLM-5.1 and Deepseek v4 are amazingly effective for much lower inference costs.