It would drastically affect most of Northern Europe, also the Eastern US. But Iceland would probably be the most seriously affected. Greenland might refreeze, I believe that the "little ice age" was responsible for the failure of the Norse Colony on the shores of Greenland.

If you read to "popular science news", you'll get a(n oversimplified) version of the news. More exact sources are available, often all the way to the raw data. But they take more effort to read.

No they're not. You're exaggerating. The majority of these developments are still empty. China's declining birth rates coupled with the increased mortality from COVID have thrown in a monkey wrench into their planning. Up to 80 million units are still empty, with slim prospects for ever being bought or even used as social housing. Most of them are just crumbling ruins at this point. Even where people have moved in (often with heavy government subsidies, essentially turning units into an eastern Section 8 housing project), occupancy is still under 10%. They simply built too many units, and there aren't enough people to live in them. Some developments are being reclaimed for agriculture, with farmers grazing livestock and plowing fields on the strips of land between crumbing concrete structures.

You seem to think all robots are the same. We've got LOTS of different kinds of robots, from robot pencil sharpeners on up. We've got robot forklifts, robot snakes, robot airplanes, etc. Humanoid robots are just another kind, but a kind that's potentially quite useful in environments shaped for humans to operate in.

Whatever, it correct anyway. The press tends to be xenophobic. They'll criticize France or Canada just as readily, though less fervently. For some reason they tend to go easy on Mexico.

You;re assuming they care whether it "musician" is an AI or not. Usually they won't. Think of it as "mood music"...it's purpose is to establish or reinforce a particular mood.

Actually, it doesn't matter much whether the "musician" can feel the emotion or not...if it did jukeboxes would never have been a thing. What matters is that it establishes a particular mood in the listeners, and note that that was a plural.

But isn't that's what popular music is reported to be already? If only a formula can win, then an AI should be able to do it.

FWIW, my tastes are "folk music" and sometimes "filk music". That's much less a formula, but possibly only because the sample size is small.

GPU are retargetable (to their original use as graphic processors), but I'm not sure the same is true of TPUs and the other more specialized varieties.

Don't expect AI to ever use only a small amount of compute. You can do a lot by pre-training, but there are limits.

OTOH, I'm rather sure that the current algorithms are a lot more wasteful than a later version will be. A factor of 100 wouldn't surprise me. Personally I think the way to handle it is with a raft of Small Language Models, each one tuned to a specific context, and a higher system that switches context as appropriate. (I've seen signs in the news that we're already headed that way.)

Moore's law may be over, but the 3D version of it is just getting started. The real problem is moving the heat away from the chip. I think we're in the early part of the ramp up of 3D chips.

N.B.: That it's actually do-able was proven decades ago, but only for custom sculpted 1-off chips in a lab setting. (I believe it was the Tennessee Valley Authority...but I'm more sure about the Tennessee than about the rest.)

AFAIKT, China is 4-5 years away from "breaking into this market", if they market is the upper end of the chips. Possibly even a bit longer. OTOH, for many purposes their chips are already good enough, so they'll break into it at the lower end as soon as they have enough chips for export. (Aren't they already doing that?)

I may have a "smart phone", but I refuse to set up internet connections on it.

... was how to disable it.

You too can be a tool!

"reductions in the price of groceries!"

Someday I 'd like to see your alternate reality for myself.