For now. The thing that concerns me is de-skilling. If students use AI to do their assignments, and work places use AI to vibe code, where does the next generation gain the skills to meaningfully review the AI generated code?

You could compare this with an optimizing compiler (an optimizer might have been considered AI once). Hardly anyone writes assembler any more and rarely does anyone review the assembly generated by a compiler. The difference is that the optimizer in a compiler only makes guaranteed correct transformations, whereas vibe coding takes an imprecise specification and applies an inscrutable algorithm to produces something that likely includes some best practice but may or may not actually be correct.

As an alternative we can treat the AI as we would a human. We gain confidence in others not by understanding exactly how they work, but by noticing that they have done good work in the past and maybe in their training (others trained by the same method have done good work in the past). This is not a senior developer reviewing the work of a junior developer. Ultimately there will bo no senior developers. Instead it is a client buying a service.

This isn't a problem if you are a regular user of such services. You might not know much about cars but you have had your car regularly serviced by the same guy for years and have built trust. But if you suddenly find yourself in need of a lawyer and you never have in the past, you have to rely on professional credentials and possibly personal recommendations.

I can't help thinking adding features like this to a spreadsheet is a bad idea. Don't all the problems of incorrect range bounds, and being difficult to maintain remain? Doesn't it just encourage people to use spreadsheets for tasks they are not really suited for?

Similarly, I like to think of myself as a bit is Bourne shell expert, especially in its bash variant. I start off with some fairly straight forward script, and then decide to "engineer" it a bit better. Refactor, introduce some functions, make use of arrays, eval and namrefs and it seems like you can do anything. But then at some point I remember that bash maybe Turing equivalent, but it is not a "real" programming language. Arrays are not first class objects, there are no namespaces etc and the project has really grown way beyond the point where the Bourne shell is a sensible choice! Sometimes I think that a few more features would make bash so much more useful, but then I think, why, when there are a plethora of other languages so much better suited to the project as it has become.

I'm sure you can do anything in Excel. Whether that is wise is a completely different matter!

I've got ducted air, but thinking of ripping it out when the compressor reaches EOL. I reckon multi-split is the way to go. The pipes are small enough to be able to install pretty much anywhere and you don't have to heat/cool the whole house, just the rooms you are using.

Our ducted air is multi-zone, but still, the return air ends up going through pretty much most of the house. Also, to work, you need to leave doors open for the return air.

Yes, but that is the end state of capitalism. Capitalism rewards business that can build competitive advantage, which includes barriers to entry for competitors. You may start out with a "free market" but most of the participants in that free market are trying as hard as they can to slant it towards themselves - to make it less free- and those that don't tend to lose out to those that do.

You can have laws to regulate the market, but wealth confers power and power can be used to shape the laws as well as fight them in the courts. And if you can persuade the public that their success is somehow tied to your success, then democracy is subverted as well.

If the price is based on the cost of the most expensive source, then someone is making a shit tonne of money!

You cleverly went from "trying to avoid US imperialism" to "bad thoughts about the US".

That is a counsel of despair! In any sufficiently large group, there will always be bad people and mad people, but they can do relatively little damage by themselves. The question is how to prevent them from rising to power.

Intent should only determine the severity of the punishment, not whether they were guilty.

They were charged with crimes and intent is usually required (see Mens Rea ) to constitute a crime (although strict liability offenses do exist). I know nothing about Finnish law but apparently what ever the crimes they were charged with did require intent.

I know your not arguing that statement is true, but that pretty much is the same as racism. Bearing mind race is not considered a scientific term anymore, racism is really the same as "othering". What constitutes "other" can be manipulated - skin color, language, place of birth, class, religion, anything. Blaming others for something, whether it be "taking our jobs" or "raping our women" based on some perceived difference that has nothing to do with whether they actually did the thing is prejudice.

Really? Every time you you assign a common sub expression to a variable, for efficiency or readability, you are using algebra, whether you realize it or not.

Yes. The reward system for training humans seems to be similar to the reward system for training AI's in the sense that many (most?) people value an ill informed, confidently delivered opinion, if it confirms their biases, over accurate nuanced, qualified information, whether it comes from a human or a machine!

This.

Not really. If one partly unilaterally breaks agreements, there is no sense in negotiating new agreements. Some level of trust is required.

I think American's are deeply indoctrinated with the idea of American exceptionalism. So when others catch up or surpass America, it must be because everyone else is cheating or whatever. MAGA really taps into that, but it is not just MAGA. Can you imagine any US president being elected asking the people to accept that the American century is over?

Yeah, but if you have solar panels powering conventional A/C, already "the sunnier the day the more they work". It is not clear that some alternative direct heating approach would have better efficiency than solar cells plus electric pump based A/C.

I have solar panels and I rarely import power on the hottest days. What is more (for those without solar panels) the wholesale energy price is often negative during the hottest part of summer days.