Ever heard of Athens? Madrid? Rome? These are in Europe too.
And apparently even some Scandinavian Countries currently experience quite a heat wave.

https://www.weatheronline.co.u...

You are right that there were alarmist predictions for a very hot and long heat wave even for the northern countries of Europe that so far have not materialized. But it has definitely been unusually hot in Greece, Italy and Spain.

So depending on where in Europe you live, you might want AC or not. (Seems to be Switzerland, so probably not)

They were not necessary until now in most areas.
But recent heat waves in southern Europe show that they may become much more common.
On top of that the current crop of split AC units can serve for very efficient heating as well (AC is a heat pump after all) so even in the northern parts of Europe it might make sense to install them.

Hey, Slashdot crowd! You are missing the important point: A meal there costs > $500

So you are not the target (and neither am I).

Let me guess: You are under 30 and healthy.

Wait until you hit 50 and the effects of ageing set in. Then you will wish that scientist found a way to avert the worst ones.

"New technology" or "equipped with cutting-edge technologies" isn't a real selling point any more either because people have come to expect that to mean "still contains bugs" and "will not work as expected".

The problem with "AI" in this context is that the current hype about "AI" is all about LLMs. There are other forms of AI that have been very useful and reliable. LLMs have proved they are not that kind of AI for everyone who has actually checked their results against trustable sources and the media has actually reported about (some of) these incidents.

But the US is working on it. :-(

And don't forget: China produces lots of goods that are sold world wide. A lot more than the EU or US. So it's no wonder that they need more power and generate more pollution.

Germany here: I severely doubt that Germany is ahead of you there. E.g. we don't get paid to consume electricity but instead have to pay a higher price because the producers of solar and wind energy get paid for the electricity they cannot sell, due to lacking demand but also due to lacking power line capacity from the north where most of the wind turbines are to the south where most of the industry is located.

Most of us also don't have the digital meters that would be required for being paid, because until recently it cost an arm and a leg to get them installed. The last government put a stop on that practice.

There are a lot of solar panels on single family houses here, but very few on larger buildings, e.g. factories, warehouses, office buildings or apartment buildings, or over parking lots (there is apparently a law in France that they have to build solar panels over new parking lots).

We are getting there, though. I just hope that our new government doesn't step on the brakes (again). They have already started pouring money into building many new gas power plants though. Fun fact: When the previous government wanted to have (fewer) gas power plants built to stabilize the power grid, the then opposition CDU party was complaining about that.

.. we'll just have to write the prompt's for it. Oh, wait!

Seriously: I learned touch typing in my youth and it has definitely benefited my career as a software developer. I can concentrate on what I want to write, not on how to type it, and that's a big advantage.

No, that is not what is going to happen: They will try to use AI as an excuse for submitting fake documents to a court case and get way with it. And they definitely should not be allowed to get away with it.

The lawyer is responsible for everything he submits to a court case. He may use "AI" go help generate these, but it is still his responsibility to check whether everything is correct. If it is not, that should be handled in the same way as if he on purpose filed fake documents.

COBOL was designed to allow non-programmers to write code that maps closely to the English language.

So now we let AI take that code and translate it to English.

Hm, that's probably something that could have been done without AI at all. But without having actually seen the generated specifications and the code they were generated from, that's difficult to say.

Actually no. I have found many very useful answers on StackOverflow. If you don't, maybe its you?

That's not to say that the growing enshitification hasn't been obvious for years, basically since the original founders sold it.

... and forcing foreign talent to leave.

So Europe will get another chance.

Just a guess: It converts strong IR light into weak visible light?