Many of those traits, like anger, selfishness, envy, greed, etc. are emergent properties of Darwinian evolution. But computers don't evolve in a Darwinian sense, so there is no reason to believe they would have any of these characteristics unless they were intentionally designed in.

Then you have never looked at a ten line C program to implement a PID control loop for a servo motor.

Except for the cell phone in your pocket, that can recognize your commands and search the internet for what you requested, or translate your statement into any of a dozen foreign languages, and has a camera that can recognize faces, and millions of objects, and can connect to expert systems that can, for instance, diagnose diseases better than all but the very best doctors. Oh, and your cellphone can also beat any grandmaster in the world at chess.

However, if you consider AI to be shorthand for "stuff computers can't do yet", then, yes, AI will always be "right around the corner".

The problem with your "free market solution" is that most people are unaware of Amazon's policies until after they bought the device, bought the app, and have the charges on their card. Markets work well when people are well informed. But, in this case, people are NOT well informed, and Amazon has been intentionally deceptive.

Nope. Job longevity is actually at an all time high. The "lifetime job security" of the "the good ole' days" is a myth that never happened.

A lateral move within a company is going to result in little or no pay increase. A new company will usually give you a significant boost to your current salary. To maximize your income, you should move to a new company every three to six years. In some professions, longevity and loyalty are rewarded. Software development is not one of those professions.

A trucker driving 60 mph 24/7 would not drive 300k miles in six months.

German and allied intelligence agencies cooperated DURING ww2. In 1943, the leader of the Abwehr, Wilhelm Canaris, offered to assassinate Hitler, announce an immediate ceasefire, and negotiate a German surrender. Winston Churchill turned him down flat out, and said there would be no ceasefire, and the allies would accept no terms other than unconditional surrender.. So the war continued. In 1944, another group of German leaders again offered to negotiate a surrender, but they botched the assassination of Hitler, and, again, the allies refused to negotiate, dooming the coup. 90% of America's casualties in WW2 occurred after Germany offered to surrender the first time, and 75% occurred after Germany offered to surrender the second time.

Likely yes. In is illegal to spy on your own country, even for the benefit of allies. Just ask Jonathan Pollard.

In either 2000 and 2004, GWB would have lost without Florida. Florida is a big swing state.

On the bright side, now anyone can amend the constitution. We can also finally remove that annoying comma from the 2nd Amendment.

Except that is not how it works. If it fails to recognize you, it will send your picture to your cellphone and ask you if it is okay for the unrecognized person to use your car. So a scratch on your face is not going to brick your car. A feature like this will almost certainly be user configurable. The options will likely include:
1. Disable facial recognition completely
2. Send a photo of an unrecognized user to a registered cellphone for approval
3. Allow an unrecognized user to use the keypad as a fallback
4. Allow an unrecognized user to identify themselves using a verbal code
5. For the higher security, require 3 and/or 4 in addition to facial recognition

Amortized across millions of vehicles, the cost will be less than $1.

As I already said, a second camera is not needed. A second camera is only needed if the result has to be instantaneous rather than a second or two of delay. This can be done purely in software, for a marginal cost of $0. Most of the software is off-the-shelf, as this is a common problem that has already been solved. Try this experiment: close one eye, then sit down in front of a photo and a real person. How hard are they to tell apart? Answer: pretty easy, and for obvious reasons that can be implemented in an algorithm.

Cost of a white LED: 2 cents. I don't think that is a show stopper.

I doubt it. First, there is no "law" requiring informed consent for such an innocuous study, just ethical guidelines. Second, there is no law saying that entities can only do things positively asserted in the TOS. Companies do behavior research all the time. Grocery stores experiment with different product placement, different background music, different lighting. They are not expected to get consent for that. This is no different. I am feeling a distinct lack of outrage about this.

As someone who has worked in computer vision, this is trivial to detect. You can either use two offset cameras, or take two photos with a single camera with a second or so delay if the target is moving even slightly. Then use the two photos to create a 3D stereoscopic image. If you want more security, you could detect small changes in facial expression, or look for blinks. Most cars already have weight sensors in the front seats, to better deploy airbags based on the size of the driver/passenger, so that weight info could also be checked for correlation with the facial image.