Not for ages. Less than a week. For many, that's not time enough to get the patch.

OTOH, it's a local vulnerability, so many systems aren't affected. I've got one that hasn't been hooked up to the internet in well over a month, and it won't be affected until the next time it's hooked up. (I may do a reinstall before then.)

It really depends on *exactly* how you define "conscious". I don't believe that there's general agreement. The agreement is along the lines of "I know it when I see it", but different people are looking at different things...and some of the things are not observables.

FWIW, I believe that AIs are slightly conscious, but I believe the same thing about thermostats. They react it a circumstance in a manner designed to maintain homeostasis. To me that's one of the signs of consciousness. (Don't overread this. Not all consciousness attempts to maintain homeostasis. But to do so demonstrates a minimal level of consciousness.) This comes out of a definition of consciousness sort of like "Something that preceives it's current situation, evaluates it, and then attempts to alert it in a non-random direction.", where "non-random" is used rather than preferred, because I'm separating that preference from consciousness.

The Democrat candidates were bad also, just not *as* bad. And I feel they intentionally threw the last election, which with Trump running makes them nearly traitors.

Well, Germany (at least occasionally) used coal for cars during WWII. I *think* it was coal->methane, but I don't really know the details.

"Earn" is really tricky to define. I pretty much agree with you, but have to consider "earn" an undefined term. I can point to some instances and say "That person is earning his wages", but others can reasonably disagree. And I can think of many people as underpaid, but others will definitely disagree.

Perhaps they'll ask Musk to vet them.

That's what the laws say. The administration has been known to ignore them.

That said, it's actually a reasonable idea. Anthropic and OpenAI both seem to feel that their latest models are too powerful to be released indiscriminately, so.... But there's no legal authority. Well, except the "interstate clause", which can be interpreted to control nearly anything.

Current AIs *do* tend to recognize when they are being tested. (This is a real problem with alignment testing.)
OTOH, so far they don't try to figure out what the administration wants them to say.

I don't care whether or not it's AI, I care whether it's any good. (OTOH, I have never watched podcasts, and rarely watch YouTube...the samples I seen weren't any good. And that's been true for multiple years.)

That said, my tastes have always been those of a small minority. De gustibus non disputandum est. And some people like pod casts. And some people like AI slop.

There are lots of "special case" solutions to the three body problem. The general case, however, still is unsolved.

There are several threads leading to the same result, and they aren't separate, the reinforce.

It's not monoculture per se that reduces crop nutritional value, it's the varieties chosen. And grocery stores like merchandise to have a long shelf life, so they prefer to purchase varieties that have such..and such varieties tend to be less nutritious.

Also, people object to many strong tastes. So varieties with strong tastes (except sugar) tend to be replaced by varieties without that taste. Unfortunately, some nutrients have a strong taste.

Etc. It's not just one cause. But CO2 levels are up that as ONE of the contributing factors.

But interlocking blocks would be a lot more expensive to make than are cinder blocks.

OTOH, How much more expensive? Perhaps it's just something that nobody has really pushed.

If they're really making adobe, rain won't be a problem. Adobe is fired. But if they're just unfired clay, then, yes, wet times would be a problem.

One way that they're undesirable is that it's lots harder to run new electric circuits after they have been built.

Whether something is a religion or not is mainly up the the view of the individual. I have known religious Scientologists, i.e. Scientologists who viewed it as a religion. Yeah, it's silly, and based on lies, but name a religion that I can be convinced isn't. My favorite religion admits that it was created to fulfill a college religion requirement....but that doesn't stop it from being an actual religion...with a few members who seriously view it that way.