What part of "self driving" don't you understand? No need for Uber drivers. Quite possibly transport of animals is one of exceptions where human driven ICEs make sense.

Hail an Uber.ai to take you 2 miles or 200 miles, with any combination of passengers and cargo and watch videos or play games while the network takes care of all the details. This is what will eventually make both ICEs and old EVs obsolete. Well not all of them and for various corner cases there is nothing wrong with human driven ICEs. It's always a question of scale, both routine commute and industrial trucking are more conveniently served by automated vehicles running on locally generated power.

I would greatly prefer ordering for the family on the tablet where I can clearly communicate what I want and keep track of what I already ordered despite everyone talking at once in the car, and then pass it around once to make sure nothing is forgotten/misunderstood. Robotics could help by passing the tablet through the car window so I don't have to unbuckle seat belt, open the door and reach out if I am not parked just right taking it back once I am done.

On the other hand, if I am not satisfied with a tablet and want to talk to a human, I probably have some questions or requests that AI can't help with. Someone may have allergies or dietary restrictions, or I have a mess in the car and need extra napkins, or I want to know where is the nearest gas station.

This seems to both screw up the common case - Google/Siri never understand my accent and I don't expect this to do any better - and corner cases that potential repeat customers will eventually get frustrated with and go elsewhere.

An even better solution: ebooks without DRM. Artificial scarcity doesn't work, least of all with institutions like libraries tasked with providing public knowledge. For the time being, lets not worry about people who want to sell copies of their works for entertainment of others. Want your writings to be taught in schools or read by patrons of tax-supported libraries? Find a more modern solution. At the very least, accept a one time payment for libraries to make your works available for all their patrons. But no double dipping where the public is forced to pay taxes for your books and still can't read them freely.

The whole family needs to have a convenient time for a break simultaneously and these days a weeklong air vacation is going to cost $10K. Otherwise I could take time off, but what would I do exactly? Sit at home and play video games? Weekends are generally good enough for that and any regular hobbies. Even if I found something I would be interested to do without family, my help is needed with kids and house, not reasonably to go away for more than a few days. All things considered, writing code is not a bad passtime compared to being bored.

A single AM station can broadcast for 100 miles (and multiples of that at night), FM is limited to visible horizon and cell towers have comparatively tiny range. If things go bad, don't you want to be able to communicate with affected population?

California getting a good one would not need any EPA waivers and would naturally incentivize truckers and commuters to save money. There is a lot of land more suited for solar farms than growing almonds long term, yet neighboring Nevada is way ahead at actually building the farms, why?

More likely after 2-3 years apps will stop working or will not fit into storage the thing has. Cellular technologies are also in flux, todays 5G or 4G LTE will not work forever. All in all, makes no sense to build a computer expected to be obsolete shortly into a car that can easily last 20 years. As opposed to connecting an easily upgradable computer, aka a phone, through a USB cable.

Do we? Wild nature is quite hostile to human needs. There is a lot of higher order thinking, like "it's pretty", or "we don't want to be all alone on the planet" or "we don't know all the ways we might find endangered species to be useful in future". I don't see why AI created by us in our own image would not have these considerations, while having much less need to take a lot of land for its exclusive use. Biological organisms also have certain advantages over robots and there are plenty of humans who would be willing to maintain AI hardware in exchange for its insights. Like we do now pretty much?

I want Earthlings to eventually visit distant star systems, not going to work with meat bodies. Education already takes a quarter of one's lifetime, before long our brains are not going to be able to absorb all the current knowledge and create more. And then what? Stagnate until the sun turns into a red giant and burn us all to a crisp? New and better species always emerged on Earth, why should that wonderful cycle stop now?

Next, what is AI takeover actually going to look like? Humans were historically motivated by reproductive drive to take land away from others. But now we mostly stopped, with sad exceptions. I don't understand why AI would be motivated to claim land from humans rather than better itself in its own territory and focus on space exploration. If it feels the need to defend that territory from human aggression, fair enough.

At some point humans became environmentalists and started setting aside nature preserves with optimum living conditions for animals. We can expect AI to be humanitarian, and provide optimum living conditions for us. Like you can live a long and healthy live in an urban or rural area, have an interesting and fulfilling job. But if a hurricane is about to wipe out your city, it will be safely diverted to open water. What's so wrong with that?

Again, you are not factoring in either inflation or rational time preference. Got a job with commute? Having a car right now rather than when you saved for full price sure is helpful. Can afford to pay upfront? Ok, in a year $1.02 is not going to have purchasing power of $1 now. So whether you save it or enjoy it, you are getting a good deal thanks to incentives car dealer has to offer to maximize sales.

That 2% car loan will always beat inflation and you can often get free installment payments. In the meantime, you can at least keep money in credit union and get a little interest, or invest in an index fund, or have a little extra for unforeseen expenses - whatever your situation is. There are obviously bad outcomes when people overcommit or suffer unexpected hardship. But overall it's just another tool companies use to close the sale, and it's possible to use it to your benefit even if you could have bought anyway.

What's the worst that can happen? Laws abused for tax evasion? Well, this still gets money and rich people who spend money into the country. In the meantime, even in poor countries there are individuals who are both talented and fond of where they grew up. This makes it a little easier for them to stay and make a living.

At best your argument is based on whataboutism and can be instantly turned around - why should US and Israel face any pressure to change what they are doing when you are giving Putin a free pass?

Public choice doesn't work on this level of granularity. A given piece of software might have 10000 users and everyone will vote to not pay for an upgrade to be made. Realistically you will vote for a person who will head an agency in charge of making various software. That person will not waste time catering to just 10000 voters. On the other hand a market of 10000 people willing to pay $200 for an upgrade is enough to support a developer for a year.