The big thing for me is that AI doesn't "write the code I put in production" - it provides guidance on techniques to use, or solves bugs I have written.

The same as StackOverflow for me. Just more personalized to my exact situation.

"I'm writing a shell script to ssh into a remote system and run some commands, I have to use some environment variables defined locally on the system I'm executing the script on, and other environment variables that are defined on the remote system I'm connecting to, and I can't remember how to escape things properly to pass through correctly." I can just feed an LLM my exact command that isn't working right, and ask it to rewrite it. It takes 2-3 further prompts ("That produced this error message, please try again") but it generally bug fixes it.

Or "I need a python script to integrate this company's API, as documented on this url with this other thing, and do this task, what would be a good sample?" I don't take it exactly as it spits it out, but use it as a basis for my own code.

I would say that in the last four years of using LLMs to assist, maybe 10% of my actual deployed code is "directly from an LLM, because it produced clearly functional code" - usually only short snippets. One short function in a Python script, for example. Maybe another 20% was "came from an LLM prompt, then heavily rewritten, because I didn't want to feed potentially proprietary data into the LLM."

They exist now. They're either small toys, or large horrendously expensive limited-purpose things.

The problem is that they're pointless. Anything a humanoid robot can do in an automated manner, a specialized non-humanoid robot could do much cheaper.

I don't need Rosie the Robot to use my regular stand-up vacuum cleaner. I have a Roomba.

I don't need a humanoid robot to sit in the driver's seat of a car to drive me around, Waymo exists.

I don't need a humanoid robot to stand in a factory using a spray can to paint a car, automated industrial robots that can do tasks like that (or welding) have existed for decades.

Chevy built one. In 2010. It was called the Volt.

Chrysler builds one. The Pacifica PHEV.

Heck, even BMW built one - the i3.

My Toyota Prius, at 300,000 miles, only got ~250 miles on a tank of gas.

Did I pay to get it fixed? No. Because it was still perfectly usable. Just as a Hyundai Ioniq 6 that gets ~50% of its original range at 300,000 miles would still be perfectly usable.

And ultra-high-mile older EVs are getting better than 70% at 200k miles.

"Less maintenance but more expensive to maintain"?

o.O

In a decade of EV ownership of multiple models by multiple manufacturers, I've never had to perform a battery replacement. I've never had to perform any "regularly scheduled maintenance" other than tire rotations. I've had a couple fluid changes on a couple vehicles, both were about the price of an oil change at a high-end carmaker's dealer. I haven't had to replace the brake pads on any, including multiple that went over 100,000 miles by the time I sold them. The only tires I've replaced were winter tires that are notoriously short lifespan, or tires that had physical damage from road debris.

Yes, maintenance on expensive brands is expensive. An oil change at a BMW dealership costs more than an oil change at a Toyota dealership. Parts for a Mercedes cost more than parts for a Ford.

Parts for a Tesla cost more than parts for a Hyundai EV. "Regular maintenance visits" for a Rivian cost more than regular maintenance visits for a Chevy Bolt.

They're *LESS* expensive to maintain, not more. And as for insuring? A Hyundai Kona EV costs the same to insure as an ICE Hyundai Kona, assuming both have the same MSRP. Yes, a Tesla costs more to insure than a Honda Civic. But so does a BMW 3-series.

And you're quoting just the one *WORST* longevity model of EV. The problem is that "mainstream EVs" are still so new that there are very few that have even *POSSIBLY* hit 200, 300, 400 thousand miles to have many data points on. At this point, nearly all "modern EVs" that have left service have done so "prematurely." There are Tesla Model S with 300,000 miles on their original battery. The fact is, the only two models of EV that sold in reasonably large numbers starting over 10 years ago are the Nissan Leaf and the Tesla Model S. And both of those, at least in the earliest years, have design issues that limit lifetime more than models shipping now.

You're also not actually doing any research, you're relying on Google AI results.

JFC. Look, I'm one of those few people that actually liked Terminator Salvation.

And Dark Fate.

But do we really need another? Dark Fate did a good job ending the "original timeline" story.

Okay, I have. I agree nuclear has an important place in "space-constrained power generation" and in areas where solar may not be the best solution (high latitudes,) and I would absolutely prefer nuclear to coal or natural gas.

But it definitely shouldn't come at the expense of the *VASTLY* quicker and cheaper to build and deploy solar.

Develop the newer better nuclear plants for where it makes sense, but keep displacing CO2-emitting sources with solar in the meantime.

Solar works. The economies of scale that the computer industry has worked decades to build finally has made solar ridiculously cheap to build. It's relatively simple to deploy at scale, and has near-zero maintenance costs.

Yes, nuclear has a place as a green energy source, for "constant base load", but solar is the future.

Even if all safety and environmental regulations on building a nuclear power plant were lifted, it would still take over a year to produce a high-capacity power plant. The largest nuclear power plant in the world has an output of about 8GW. China deployed that much new solar every *WEEK* in the first half of this year. It is simply impossible to deploy new nuclear power generation capacity at the rate we can deploy new solar. And nuclear costs far more.

Add to that improvements in energy storage (not just batteries, although that is primary,) and China is poised to very rapidly increase their power grid.

Oh, and the Guinness record only specifies "electric vehicle" - you'd think the World Solar Challenge folks would have this handily, as they go 3000 km+ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

And yet again, it doesn't specify electric _GROUND_ vehicle. Solar Impulse 2's 4,819 nmi (8,924 km) stretch from Japan to Hawaii would be tops: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

It may be the longest by a "stock production vehicle", but we don't even know that for certain. And it clearly used a major downhill amount to achieve it.

By contrast, a battery technology company put a prototype 200 kWh battery in an older Tesla Model S in 2022 and got 752 miles in one charge (4 miles more), on flat terrain: https://web.archive.org/web/20...

Except it isn't a strawman astroturfing. It's a real sticking point that we need to solve. Many (US) apartment complexes/buildings don't have parking that has reasonable ability to charge an EV. And relying on public charging infrastructure - while absolutely doable today - negates one of the main "usability" and financial advantages of an EV - spending a few seconds plugging in when you get home and paying low home electricity rates, to start each day "with a full tank" inexpensively.

If you have to do the ICE-like "plan a stop to refuel" that costs just as much per mile as refilling an equivalent gasoline car, you're losing the "mainstream advantage."

Yes, to people for whom "trying to minimize their own personal carbon footprint," it may be worth it.

As for the other claims on towing? I've had zero problem towing travel trailers over 10,000 miles in my Rivian R1T over the last 3 years. Including a 4500 mile round trip throughout the Western US. The GMC Sierra EV / Chevy Silverado EV is even better for towing (much more range, much faster charging.) And while the CT may be an absolute joke of a vehicle, it can actually tow at least as well as the F-150 Lightning. (And I know Lightning owners who have towed significant distances, including a trip from Oregon to Colorado and back.)

Pointing out that as it stands now there are inequalities does not make someone a Russian shill.

The solution for bringing equality to EVs is to promote even cheaper EVs, keeping the used EV tax credit (which was just nixed starting September,) and promoting multifamily housing EV charging access. Maybe require new-construction to add EV charging, incentivize retrofitting EV charging to existing multifamily housing, promoting low-power residential streetside charging (as is happening in parts of Portland and Seattle,) enforcing "resident can pay to have EV charging installed" laws (that already exist in many states, but have onerous hoops to jump through.)

They also have a point that if we had better designed dense cities, with good public transit, then personal cars wouldn't be as necessary. See New York City, where only 45% of households own a car at all thanks to the good subway system! A dense city with good clean public transit is far cleaner than a sprawling car-required hellscape like Los Angeles or Phoenix, even if all vehicles were EVs.

I'm a chemist. To me, "organic" just means "contains carbon-carbon" or "contains carbon-hydrogen." :-P

Some company/organization/"AI influencer" will declare that AGI has been achieved in 3-10 years. But it won't. They'll just be redefining what "AGI" means to be something less than they mean now; and come up with some new term "Universal Artificial Intelligence" or something to mean "true Sci-Fi style AI." (Like when they said "we have AI, what you're talking about is A*G*I")

This.

Amazon doesn't deliver to most rural addresses - they just ship it via USPS. Amazon simply cannot replace USPS with their existing infrastructure. Heck, I'm not exactly "rural" and most of my Amazon deliveries come by USPS or UPS, not by Amazon delivery vehicles.