I'm amazed that 16% of respondents feel in control. I'm just curious if they know something I don't about countermeasures to take; or if it's a matter of what they don't know.

The prior non-core items were optional and relatively clearly marked; but when they decided to go 'AI' that went out the window. Being able to grub around in about:config for anything that has 'ml' in it does, depressingly, put them ahead of the options of some of the competition; but it shipped on by default and without controls in the normal-user UI. Seems like 'AI' really does something to the decision making even of people who should know better.

Sort of.

Humans have removed most of the natural predators of birds, but cats, who have the ability to live alongside humans, have adapted to that ecological niche.

Kodak's demise is a little overstated just because they have been reorganized several times; and 'Kodak' is sort of the dump entity. There are still a variety of applications for being competent at thin film chemistry, including semiconductor fabrication, just not so much making 35mm film. So Eastman Chemical got most of that. And some of their medical and otherwise higher-end optics and imaging stuff also got spun off, with the business of not terribly optically interesting cameras under heavy threat from apathy and cellphones left at Kodak proper.

They certainly didn't do desperately well; or they'd probably be somewhere more along the lines of Sony in terms of 'who builds CCDs worth disclosing the provider of?'; but the reorgs appear to have been aimed at separating the more viable business units from the liabilities. Probably so the latter could be tied to the pension plan.

Data is here: https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/a...

Germany is high in terms of CO2/kw-hr, but not the highest in Europe. Germany has dropped their CO2/kw-hr by 37 percent since 2010, so it is at last improving. France, as OP noted, is considerably lower.

This is technically true, but the amount of CO2 produced is so miniscule compared to burning fossil fuels that to a good first approximation it is zero.

Basically, when your entire method of producing energy is by burning hydrocarbons, you produce a lot of CO2.

The serious killer of birds is glass windows on skyscrapers.
Wind turbines barely rate.

Good. Coal combines the worst features of all the power technologies. It is an awful, dirty fuel, with a cost reckoned not merely in dollars but in lives.

They're retiring the coal plants because it's not cost-effective to run them, but all the other problems with coal are enough to make me cheer.

Well, I'll have to admit, I didn't have "learning that someone on Slashdot believes that the Cold War was a myth" on my bingo card for today.

The third option is.....labor automation!

Walk with me on this....

Humans have been exploiting and oppressing each other since before recorded history. And this has been true in very capitalist economies as well as very communist ones. It's basically a universal truth. Furthermore, it was way, way worse in the past.

What changed? Has humanity become more moral in the past few thousand years. I find that very, very unlikely and not well supported by evidence. But tech level has changed tremendously in the past few thousand years, creating more luxury for more people than ever before in history.

So, I contend that there is no sweet spot of an economic or legal model that will resolve the problems faced by capitalist and socialist societies. Humans will just keep on humaning. But more breakthroughs in labor automation have the potential to be significant game changers. Once people can have the things they need in abundance without having force others to labor to produce it, the incentives, targets, and dynamics all change.

Of course, all the human evils will still be there, but just as we have seen a huge reduction in slavery during the rise of labor-saving technology, it is at least possible that we will continue to see a reduction in "slavery" (or wage-slavery or lesser forms of oppression) as we automate more and more of our labor.

I would roll AI into the labor-automation category as well. It's all driven by corporate greed of course but that doesn't mean that absolutely no good will come of it.

You seem to be confusing "wanting to get rid of communists" with "wanting their countries to be poor and dangerous".

The last sentence of the article:

Whether it [the new law] withstands constitutional review will determine how far Germany’s commitment to individual privacy can bend in the name of security.

Even the AI can spit out the answer.

"The Commerce Clause (Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution) grants Congress power to regulate trade between states, foreign nations, and Native American tribes, fostering a national common market by preventing states from imposing trade barriers."

Since the various AIs travel the internet and qualify as communication there would be have to be a Federal agency to regulate them. It would probably be called the Federal Communications Commission... oh wait, it already exists and belongs to the Executive branch.

So until Congress decides on the specific rules that need to regulate Augmented Idiocy the Executive branch will have to do what it thinks is appropriate. And yes, Congress needs to get its ass off of the bales of bribe money and figure this out. I don't pretend to know what the solution is, but I would like to see a mandatory watermark "This content created by AI."

Does this mean the Martian Council of Elders has finally figured out how to disable our satellites in orbit?

Will our gelsacs be safe?!

Where would we deport them to?