Science hasn't made any progress on the nature of sentience since Descartes went all tinfoil hat on reality before walking himself back.

You can tell because they can't really create something we would recognize as true sentience. Maybe it's an impossible ask, maybe it's one product release away.

But the best scientific reasoning has come up with to date is a way to sample from a probability distribution that approximates human output. And a lot of philosophical woo to assert without proof that that same process accurately describes what's going on between your ears.

Yeah, it's gonna be literally impossible to see you walking around in that thing emitting visible light in all directions.

Yes, thank you, young man. Here's a shilling,* keep the change.

*A shilling being a transcendental fraction of the King's pound sterling, of course. Cuz if you're going to have a king and put his face on your money, any rationality in your currency is out the window already.

What about prefaulted pages?

want to have a deep philosophical discussion with my microwave over the meaning of sentience.

By dropping bombs on the enemy's strategic assets that enable him to make war.

Bridges, railways, factories, communication nodes.

Grandma and grandpa used to tell me stories about how when the Germans invaded and started bombing Kiev, they were sent east of the Ural mountains, along with all the factory machinery that could be put on railcars, so that the munitions plants could keep running (staffed by kids too young to fight and oldtimers too old to fight) to keep the front lines supplied.

How do they identify a robot? Flash up a naked circuit board for the captcha and see if there's a complaint about pr0n on the bank login!

Pork barrel? Nah it'll be the green chile barrel, and I'd be OK with that.

Maybe the could fund replacement emergency spare tires for all. After all you're not really meant to put 100k miles on one.

and countries are still maneuvering to gain the best position, and that includes the US.

Are they? The US isn't, it's bending to the whims of an angry, stupid, corrupt and senile old man bent on getting as rich as possible. Needlessly burning allies doesn't put the US in a good position.

meaning Russia and China's nuclear arsenal is effectively useless

Russia's nuclear arsenal is already very close to being effectively useless. Not a chance they've been doing good stockpile stewardship while the entire rest of the armed forces (and its tyres) rots into the ground.

And why would Trump/America care?

When America lost 3000 people on 9/11 and called for aid, Europe stood up.

The question was not why should America care, but why would America care.

There's a good chance they simply won't. America has not had a great record of being a reliable ally over the years.

No, just right wing economists. History has demonstrated that Keynes was right all along.

The problem with right wing economists like Friedman is that they started with the conclusion they wanted (let the rich do whatever they want) and then created all these absurd theories to try and justify that conclusion.

Also profiting off of crime and fraud is morally questionable.

Unless all profits go to real charity, people that watch this support fraud.

That's like saying people that watch true crime shows about murder support murder.

All centralized power will work to expand its reach. Sometimes nakedly as in Germany or the Soviet Union (neither place having developed a generations-long tradition of self-rule that makes such things taboo). Sometimes subtly, through agencies' expanded remits or assertions of authority to fill a vacuum. But nearly always in the name of some common good. Populism is a dirty word among some folks, you equate it with reactionary politics, but what word would you use to describe exercising "the people's power" on their behalf?

Republicans used to be protectionists until the middle of 20th century. Milton Friedman convinced a lot of people there were no downsides to outsourcing so long as the quarterly numbers were good. Dude even had the chutzpah to say it's okay to let the defense industry wither away because "steel can be stockpiled."

He was certainly influential. But now that I'm older and wiser, he's the poster child for why economists should be treated with all the respect that practioners of voodoo are due.