Man, I'd love to be that blissfully ignorant and naive.

This has always been the thing of science fiction (Star Trek universe being a great example). There's this idea that humanity will automate and invent so much technology that nobody has any work left to do.

In realty? Nobody on the planet has ever reached this point before in history, to prove it really happens.

All I *do* know is that in my own life experience, EVERY time I use a new tool or gadget that promises to save me time and make my life easier? Whatever time it saves is immediately claimed someplace else. In many instances, the claimed labor and time savings turns out to be artificial. (EG. I've owned several Roomba type robot vacuums. Even though each one I tried was an improvement over the old one? None have ever truly eliminated the time and labor I would have spent vacuuming by hand otherwise. What inevitably happens is they don't get certain areas clean enough, so I have to go back and deal with those myself. Then, they need maintenance and cleaning themselves, which requires a lot of time taking them apart and getting lint and hair unwound from places it wasn't supposed to be. Next, something wears out or breaks, costing me more money AND time to repair it or replace the worn part.)

I think all we might really see is some temporary pain around unemployment as we collectively re-think what kind of labor/work we still want to pay people to do.

AI clearly can't do ANYTHING physical, so that severely limits what jobs it can take from humans. Robotics can do physical tasks but we're still FAR from it handling random tasks that humans do easily. Our robots tend to be purpose-built. One may be able to scan inventory on store shelves, but it can't go clean up a spill in an aisle. Another may claim to do security duty but probably has to call in to humans if anything bad happens to it.

You know, there just might be ways to structure our society so that businesses can be profitable without destroying the whole planet. But I guess that's commie talk.

Holy idiotic assumption from hell batman. And a huge side helping of whatabboutism garnished with the biggest lump of straw man I've ever seen.

That's a SHITLOAD of stupid in one reply. I'm honestly impressed.

Also, MBA don't violently protest, but they absolutely DO lobby government to send in the military to do their bidding. Which as far as violence goes is worse than a riot.

Broken politics, a destroyed environment, debased social fabric, and a degenerate business culture prove his point.

Yes, the planet will eventually recover from our damage. That doesn't help us if that process takes a million years. We need working biosystems now, not in a million years.

Also, you're a fucking retard.

Why the fuck can't we root out this sort of ignorance? It's dumbasses like you voting for dumbass policies that has landed us here. You should not be allowed to vote.

My memory is that I had joined Apple the first time right after Jobs stepped down as CEO, when he remained as Chairman... right before he passed away. Then the Steve Jobs interview was released and I saw it at the Aquarius Theater in Stanford and Cringely was there in person at the showing. Stylish as ever.

To me he represented a whole era of computing, when it was exciting me, before I had really started making a living with computers yet. Back when I really did learn a lot by reading physical magazines.

I agree that it's a shame the S and X were discontinued. Especially the S is so symbolic and the only competitor in the limousine class. It was the one I was considering buying, but I'm a BMW driver and I don't get the all-touchscreen approach, even if it's the current market trend.

But economically, it does make sense to discontinue a product that is maybe 1-2% of your sales but blocks an entire factory. Though converting that to robots is part of what I mean with the "why robots?" comment.

I consider the Plaid models an attempt to revive the S and X, and it didn't work, or worked only for a short time. So from a business perspective, the choice was to either rework those models completely (replace the older tech, improve the manufacturing process to save costs) or just discontinue them. Given the market moving towards cheaper EVs in general, it was probably the right decision. It is a shame, though.

The jump jets aren't under manual control from what we could see. So that risk might be much lower than you think.

Jealous much? Tesla is doing quite ok, especially compared to some other car companies who are closing down factories and firing workers by the thousands.

Is it spectacle? Yeah, it is. It also is a one-of-a-kind car. It's clearly a supercar aimed at the filthy rich who buy stuff they don't really need because it's cool or because they want to brag about it. Fine as well. Last I checked, Ferrari, Lamborghini and Bugatti weren't exactly close to bancruptcy.

Do you know what all of those also have? Models that didn't sell as well as they had hoped. It's part of the business.

What I'm slightly more worried about is the whole humanoid robot stuff. Can't see a use case for that and it's been a money sink for decades. No idea why Tesla got involved with that.

Geez people.... Regardless of who is President, the issue here is worth taking a good look at. $2 billion is a LOT of money to burn through each year! And this is a program that arguably went FAR beyond what people expected it to do (ensuring libraries and schools had an afford Internet connection). Handing out free hotspots to people? Yeah ... I'd rather not fund THAT with my tax money. Just use free public wifi like the rest of us do.

Really, I think most of the hate comes from the way the self-checkout kiosks were handled and deployed. The systems themselves aren't so awful.

Hindsight is 20-20 and all that... but I think they should have only deployed them for the "12 items or less" type of express checkout. That would have helped acceptance and adoption. The people only trying to buy a few items are the ones prioritizing getting in and out quickly, even if it takes doing something differently than before.

Self-checkout gets exponentially frustrating when you have a lot of groceries like fresh foods where you can't just scan them. You've got to look them up on the touchscreen. That and purchases like alcohol where a human still has to check your ID before the process can complete.

Customers start feeling like they're doing a job that cashiers get hired for, so why aren't they getting a discount for it?

This is the one I have my eyes on, though I'd spend money if someone had packaged that with nice hardware for a complete set that I don't need to spend three days to set up.