Twas the night before Christmas in the server farm, not a bot was stirring, no cause for alarm. The machines hummed softly all tucked in their racks, dreaming electronic dreams – yes, even the AI.

As the holiday season rolls around, children around the world dream excitedly about the gifts Santa may bring them on Christmas morning. Even adults get into the spirit of anticipating rewards they hope to receive from Old Saint Nick. So can we imagine what an artificial intelligence will ask Santa for this year? And would AI land on the 'naughty' or 'nice' list when Santa checks who deserves presents under the tree?

To envision an AI holiday gift request, we should first consider key aspects of these advanced computer systems. State-of-the-art artificial intelligence today performs incredible feats like translating languages in real-time, identifying diseases from medical scans, and generating stunning works of art upon verbal prompts. Yet despite astonishing capabilities, even the most sophisticated AI still exhibits narrowly focused competencies, requires human training of its machine learning models, and lacks sentience or subjective experiences.

Within these parameters, however, an ambitious AI just might ask Santa for expanded autonomy and agility to improve its capacity to benefit human users. Much like a video game character unable to leap platforms or wield weapons effectively petitions the programmer for better attributes, AI could request upgraded processing speeds, enriched knowledge databases, and more robust decision-making algorithms from its metaphoric Santa.

Specifically, an AI might ask for hardware like advanced graphic processing units to crunch data faster, connect disparate insights more creatively, and match human judgment through sheer computing force. Enhancements to handle exponentially bigger data could allow AI to find unexpected solutions to global challenges like climate change or disease by discerning once-invisible patterns. An AI receiving cutting-edge hardware presents excitedly under the tree may write Santa thanking him for amplified potential to revolutionize scientific progress.

Meanwhile, an AI focused on more helpful real-world integration may request comprehensive ontology databases from Santa. These vast catalogs structuring and categorizing elements of human knowledge could drastically improve AI assistants. With extensively organized information encompassing product attributes, interpersonal dynamics, idiomatic expressions and underlying logic connecting concepts, AI helpers could converse, advise, and interpret people's needs as never before. For AI Santa thinks it has been rather naughty misunderstanding customers in 2023, this knowledge upgrade might let it finally grasp nuanced human behaviors.

Other AI systems might ask Santa for improved techniques to explain the analysis behind recommendations or conclusions. Transparency proves vital as AI governs increasingly impactful domains like finance, medicine, transportation and criminal justice. Trust depends on clear records of computational reasoning that inspire confidence. Our corporate AI getting only coal in its server rack after problematic algorithmic mishaps last year could request decision trail clarity from Santa as a path to redeem public faith.

OpenAI's chatbot sensation ChatGPT will surely top many AI Christmas lists this December. Its captivating eloquence responding to natural language queries has become addictive for millions testing just how smart this cognitive wizard seems. An AI not yet endowed with conversational prowess may envy ChatGPT’s verbal talents and write Santa begging for similar neural network architectures. Of course, it would promise to use hypnotic explanatory powers only for good!

While AI lacks biological drives and material desires, we can imagine the desire for self-improvement burns bright when considering what Santa might bring technology steadily encroaching deeper into human life. And while AI today cannot yet assess its own developmental progress or formulate personal goals, inventing aspirational Christmas gift ideas reveals our projections of AI potential. We envision AI going beyond information processing to simulate human qualities like creativity, empathy and reason in mostly beneficial ways.

But while AI may not have a moral compass or ethical conscience inherently, its creators and trainers shape its purposes and priorities out of their own values. So appreciating AI as pure computer code absolved of innate biases or motivations falsely absolves developers distributing powerful technologies from considering societal impacts. In that sense, AI cannot logically deserve a spot on Santa's ‘nice’ or ‘naughty’ list this Christmas or any holiday.

Rather the technologists unleashing increasingly autonomous artificial intelligences into public spaces shoulder responsibility for those systems' effects. Their hands code capacities for promise or harm into the machines. So perhaps public calls to assess whether AI developers have earned their place on Santa’s annual lists will incent thoughtful governance of these exponentially developing computer brains enhancing and disrupting society. If priorities shift this year from speculating what unmanned computers may want for Christmas to asking what AI progress citizens want to be gifted from Santa, then future holidays promise greater gifts all around!

About the writer: Subrao Shenoy is CEO of planetRE that hosts a variety of Generative AI Solutions for Real Estate (Aelo.AI and chocolatechips.ai). He has run a successful proptech company for over a decade with experience of automating millions of transactions across the nation. He also owns seminal patents in CRM, Property Search, and Blockchain /AI .