... is a movie trope where everyone in the world has perished, except for the protagonist, who is now free to roam the world unmolested, help himself to any of the remaining resources available, do whatever he/she wants, etc.

The fantasy part is the idea that the catastrophe will get rid of all the people you don't care about, freeing up their resources for your own use, while sparing you and the people and resources that you do care about.

The people in this article can be blasé about AI killing humanity because at some level they think that they and what's important to them will be spared. Most likely, they think their wealth will save them. If and when they find out that they will suffer and die as well, their acceptance of the idea will evaporate quickly.

What's the end-game there, once there are no activities left that cannot be performed better by a machine? No more jobs for humans, and then everyone retires (in the optimistic scenario) or starves/riots (in the pessimistic scenario)?

Air-delivery can be faster for small items, but land-delivery is much more energy-efficient, since you don't have to support the weight of the robot and the payload for the duration of the trip.

That means that the wheeled bot can have a larger range, carry larger payloads, and needs to be recharged less often. OTOH it has to wait for stoplights, can only go 5-10 miles per hour, etc.

The irony of course being that they're actually quite good, like Average White Band.

Take the $billions you were going to spend on Solar Powered Space Data Centers, and instead build equivalent Solar Powered data centers here on Earth at 1% of the cost. Make up for the lack of 24/7 sunlight by adding additional solar panels, energy storage, and transmission lines as necessary.

Then take the other 90% of the money that you just saved, and spend it on cocaine and hookers.

Your ping times will be much better also.

I prefer to think it's Leonard Cohen's doing.

Drive-by-wire? From the description, it almost sounds like all they need is a trailer to be pulled behind the primary vehicle. Maybe with a fancy hitching mechanism to give it more separation, but still, self-driving seems like overkill for this application.

Then you'll be happy to find out that 99.9999% of the Internet was unaffected.

Depends on whether they want to avoid consequences the next time it happens; eg causing an accident and getting on the news.

The difference between a 'personal' charger and a 'commercial' charger is 'is this being used by a person, or by the public.'

It's not different hardware. It might not even be a different firmware, depending on the manufacturer; I know that for my charger, all it takes to make it 'commercial' is to point it's configuration at a payment portal.

Nope. You're conflating 'the car' with 'the driver.'

You, and your car, spend about ten minutes a week at a gas pump to pump 500 miles of range into your box on wheels.

Your neighbour spends about twenty seconds per week to put 500 miles of range into his box on wheels, which takes his car 12 hours.

The only EV trip that can't be made would be the cannonball run.

Well, ackshually, it's been done.

Don't bother arguing with Fluffernutter; he's tried to argue in the past that 'clicking climate start in the car's app' is somehow too complicated for the average person to do, and too much hassle, where as climbing into an ice cold ICE car and waiting for the cabin to warm up while you sit there in the driveway is faster, easier, more efficient, and better.

Americans are widely known for limiting their ammunition to birdshot in the name of public safety. It's all part of our restrained and responsible gun culture.

I might have a huge cultural bias here, but if you're idea of politeness consists of lying to people, and then expecting them to argue with you, then your culture sucks.

So, to be clear, 'after you/no, after you, I insist' means 'your culture sucks?'