Does the AI ever admit that it doesn't know what the rest of the inscription said? That's the only honest answer.

Do the Google team repeat the process after removing randomly selected data from the training and see how the outcome changes, repeatedly?

Central Park is larger than anyone's back yard will ever be. It's possible to go jogging, biking, on gondolas... People in Manhattan don't need back yards because Central Park is right there. And no, it's living in isolated cookie-cutter stroadvilles that makes people unhappy, not living in cities.

However, I do think the climate scientists made a HUGE strategic error yelling that the sky is falling from every rooftop they have access to and now Mr & Mrs J. Doe are bored and numb.

The problem isn't with the science or the scientists, it's the fossil fuel industry doing everything it can to discredit science & distract people.

There have been more than 400,000 live births in California every year since 1979. In contrast, the article says that 300,000 people immigrated in 2024, and even plunged to 40,000 a few years earlier. Well, 400,000 is greater than 300,000 so no, immigration is far from the only thing propping up California's population.

In the late 1960s and mushrooming in the MBA 1980s, professional managers (management degree, MBA, finance degree) took over leadership of many large USA companies. Those professional managerial class spent focus on cutting cost and efficiency instead of building new products and inventing things. It drove out of upper management or kept out of upper management the next generation of corporate leaders who's learned the business from the factory floor or entry level jobs.

It's worse than that. Management was promoted as a means of union busting. Rather than promote people out of the labor movement, the capital owning class instead promoted a management class to keep labor in check. And it worked!

Correct. We will "fix traffic" and end traffic congestion & traffic jams only when there are viable alternatives to driving.

How about $100k / year to replace a Fortune 500 CEO? That would be a good deal.

Econ 101 here: there won't be a shortage, there will be an increase in electricity costs. Maybe the datacenters will be too costly to run, to the dismay of the AI companies, or maybe poor people will be priced out of the market. But a shortage would happen if e.g. the government intervened and set low price caps on electricity.

Yes, the summary basically says a much, but then what's with portraying it as a shortage? Doesn't everything face "operational constraints" based on real world costs? The particulars may vary, but competition for limited resources remains a constant.

It's not that the sideline tracks are antiquated, it's that freight operators have increased the length of their trains to cut down on the number of operators (people working), for profit. They're making more money and inconveniencing us in the process. Oh, and these longer trains that run short-staffed are dangerous: that's how we get the East Palestine train derailment.

Then maybe Elon Musk already considered nuclear and passed on it?

Students have become customers, and the universities now sell a product. Higher grades are there to please the customer. To fix the system, college needs to be much, much cheaper and much more bare-bones, with simple dormitory life and few frills. That way, it's clear that going to college is not about living a comfy lifestyle, but about getting an education, nor is it about paying for a product and getting what you paid for.

Cars are more dangerous. Ban those first, except for emergency services & people with disabilities. Then the e-scooters can safely use the streets.

No, they exactly achieved their goal, which is to bring attention to the issue of fossil fuels & global warming. People don't realize that even if we reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions we've already caused several degrees of warming. Undoing that warming will require net negative greenhouse gas emissions. But instead our emissions continue to increase! The situation is very bad and becoming ever worse.

The selection of the Doge of Venice is a case where history is both humorous & informative. Venice was a merchant republic with an elite oligarchy of wealthy merchants, and they selected a Doge (Duke) to lead them in foreign affairs. This is how they chose their leader while trying to avoid undue influence:

After 1172 the election of the doge was entrusted to a committee of forty, who were chosen by four men selected from the Great Council of Venice, which was itself nominated annually by twelve persons. After a deadlocked tie at the election of 1229, the number of electors was increased from forty to forty-one. New regulations for the elections of the doge introduced in 1268 remained in force until the end of the republic in 1797. Their intention was to minimize the influence of individual great families, and this was effected by a complex electoral machinery. Thirty members of the Great Council, chosen by lot, were reduced by lot to nine; the nine chose forty and the forty were reduced by lot to twelve, who chose twenty-five. The twenty-five were reduced by lot to nine, and the nine elected forty-five. These forty-five were once more reduced by lot to eleven, and the eleven finally chose the forty-one who elected the doge. Election required at least twenty-five votes out of forty-one, nine votes out of eleven or twelve, or seven votes out of nine electors.

In California, for example, ambulances are allowed to go through red lights at up to 15 mph.