Huh? Are you crazy? It obviously doesn't fly around with a 300 foot cable sticking out. Do you know how a tether works. Furthermore, if it does get tangled it snaps off and notifies.

No doubt, but the grownups aren't talking about replacing the fuel bill with a per mil charge, we're talking about replacing the fuel tax>/em>. California has the highest gas tax in the US, at 61.2 cents per gallon. I drive about 10,000 miles a year. The gas tax comes out to a bit less than $250/year at 25 mpg. 3 cents per mile would be $300/year, or higher (though not a lot higher).

In the rest of the country - by definition, our gas tax being the highest - the difference will be more.

Note that the gas tax in California (like most states) does not go to CalTrans, responsible for maintaining highways, it goes into the general fund, for whatever graft and corruption on the the menu this week. The same would be true of any per mile tax on EVs.

As for replacing the fuel bill, last time I calculated it, the cost of electricity here to charge a typical EV would also cost more than the gasoline, and electricity has gone up since then (quite a bit this year), where gas goes up and down, but has hovered between $4-5/gallon for years.

According to Google, Starliner is a fixed-price contract, so (in theory) they should only get paid for meeting milestones. There's no extra profit to Boeing in dragging this out (again, in theory).

Paid for with U.S. taxpayer funds. Contractors are paid by the government which paid for by the people. It's government, and our, IP.

Zipline's drone tech is a lot better and way quieter. The Zipline drone, which is already pretty quiet, stays over 300 feet above the drop site and reels the/ package down with a tether in an aerodynamic pod. No noisy drone landing and highly accurate package placement even when it's windy. Reference: https://www.zipline.com/techno...

And you've just accused me.

China is committed to controlling the world. All of it. They believe themselves so inherently superior to the lesser races that it is their destiny and obligation to run everyone.

They've been playing similar games in Africa for years. They're just confident enough now to move on to bigger prey.

Regardless of why it's done, such a prohibition is a good and necessary thing. China has already proven that they will use control over exports to make economic war on those it wishes to conquer and enslave (which is everyone).

Or probably would have hallucinated an elaborate conspiracy theory to back up the claim.

It won't play well with the jury, either, whose opinion actually matters.

AI implies intelligence of some sort.

There isnâ(TM)t enough data to train on for robotics. They are going to have to create it, using humans. They are going to have to show how to do all the things humans can. AI needs millions of hours of driving videos just to figure out how to drive. Meanwhile any human (ok almost) can learn to do it with a few hours of training.

How is a plumbing or electrician or roofing robot going to get the data it needs. It will need thousands of hours of videos of the various permutations and possibilities that it can encounter.

And the copyrights for them go to ... publisher, AI/LLM owner ... ?

I can lose less faith in humanity by writing stuff off as AI.

Won't really know for sure until someone shuffles across Mars in socks and touches the rover. :-)