Indeed. My thought was that CO2 levels could roughly correspond to the number of people in the specific room, offset by actual ventilation levels.

IE more CO2 = more risk because it means more people with inadequate ventilation.

Conference crud is really simple. Hacker or not. You bring in hundreds/thousands of people from around the country and world, exposing most of them to even more potential disease carriers on airplanes, trains, busses, and more, then disrupt people's sleep and disgestive tracts with unfamiliar locations, schedules and food and you have the perfect melting pot to get people sick.

What can be done to help prevent it? Mask wearing might help some, along with sanitary other stuff - improve the ventilation in such buildings, including good filters, UV lights and such helping to sterilize the air. At the same time, improve air quality otherwise, because harsh cleaning chemicals can also make people sick.

Totally agree. Today's "AI" companies would like their investors to believe there's a path though.

Clearly we're misunderstanding each other. I was saying that investing in the bubbled asset was folly. I think the AI industry will continue to exist after the bubble pops but at a size no larger than the database industry today. So not zero value, but a small fraction of what it is currently.

I do think that the amount of money being invested in AI training for the improvements being produced is an absurd waste. They're spending larger and larger sums of money to produce rapidly vanishing improvements that customers have so far never shown an interest in paying enough to turn a profit with.

So in other words, because chewy.com exists today it would've been smart to invest into pets.com at the height of its value?

This is going to be such a disastrous investment it's going to make Solyndra look like an insignificant whoopsie in comparison. While Chinese product dumping efforts can be hard to foresee, the obviousness and severity of the AI bubble has been on public display for anyone who cares to look for months now. And there's the potential to sink far more money into it. The winner of the AI race is going to be whoever wastes the least money on this folly, and the US looks set for a massive and easily avoidable loss now.

And let's not forget the end goal of this. If someone were to win this race in the fictional imagined scenario where AI didn't hit the core of Diminishing Returns Planet around ChatGPT 4 and there was some kind of path from LLM tech to AGI, the end result would be a technology that augments/replaces labor (same thing, don't be fooled by your boss) in a world dominated by an economic system where most people are workers who need to be able to find buyers for their labor. What could possibly go wrong with that?

This might be the best evidence yet of a bubble.

I don't think he will or should receive a lifetime ban from any and all employment.

But as for MIT, or any other research institution with any prestige, my prediction is he is done.

As for Sam Altman, maybe you can point us to some example when he or OpenAI violated academic integrity by fabricating data like this?

It doesn't. What it means is cutting through a lot of big parcels whose owners have big money, so they can be big impediments. There has to be a happier medium than this between respect for individual private property ownership and the needs of the many, but we are clearly uninterested in finding it in this country.

The greater good...for who?

I mean, in an example....high speed rail from NYC to LA.

I don't know exactly which states they'd pass through, but let's just pick Iowa for shits and giggles.

Now...to keep things "high speed" that means you're NOT going to be stopping much at all between the two end points.

So, this would benefit people in CA and NY, but it gives NO benefit to people in Iowa who would have cities, farmland,all sorts of private properly they'd have to give up for the system.

Why the fuck would anyone in Iowa vote to give things up for this rail system they do not benefit from and actually gain hassle from...?

I wonder if HSR could be placed on parts of the existing interstate highway system to save costs and time.

You're going to just piss off the majority of people that currently use those to drive....those people are also known as "constituents" and can get a politician fired pronto.

Why does everything have to be profitable?

Well, if you want private industry to build it, they need incentive and "profit" is usually the driving motive historically.

Our current US railways were built by private industry.

The govt would just fuck it up and end up being massively expensive with everyone trying to get their cut of it.....especially if it were Federal.

Most roads, water, utilities...that are public...are LOCAL....city, state funded....

As the OP pointed out, the problem is political and social, not technical.

And well...that's PLENTY enough to derail any efforts in the US.

You start mass eminent domain cases taking land from people and cities and well, you're gonna easily have 50+ years alone before the majority of those are settled one way or another.

Also, unless you get long straight shots of track...you're not going to have true High Speed Rail....and part of the obsticals for that is having to stop many times in many cities, turning to go to each one of those.....and if you don't do that and don't have service to many spots along the way.....those cities and states and localities aren't going to go out of their way to help take away land just to have something go speeding by them and be of no use to them there...

And if you can't really get true High Speed rail in.....most of the US will do "so, why bother? We already have highways, cars and planes to travel long distances fast...why do through the huge expense, litigation and hassle of doing rail?

There would be little perceived ROI to the average US citizen.

I mean, why would someone in Iowa give a flying fuck if someone in NYC could ride a fast train to LA?

The US has no excuse. The only reason the US can't do it is corruption and/or incompetence.

Does it not ever occur to you that we in the US might actually LIKE/ENJOY the transportation system we have?

If we wanted all public transport....we'd get it. If we all wanted to live in extreme urban cities stacked on top of each other like rats and sharing walls....we'd do that.

We simply prefer our way of life....with individual transportation.

It also is likely part of a culture difference....that those in the EU never seem to be able to comprehends...in the US we prioritize the individual....whereas ya'll prioritize collectivism....the masses.

You prioritize the 'state'. And we prioritize the person.

And you act as if you way is the only true and "right" way to live.

Why not step back and think that some free people might want to live differently than you do....?

I also very much doubt you will find any blue haired teachers.

I see PLENTY of them, blue and other neon like hair colors on YouTube and TikTok......tons of them teaching kids and ranting far left ideals....

Yellowstone needs to be drained of heat, otherwise it will burst the ugliest of bursts.

I would be so utterly disappointed and surprised if Napster had somehow grown up into a stable, solvent, law-abiding corporation.