MangoCats

The rental cars I have driven with lane keeper functions have all been too aggressive / easily fooled by visual anomalies on the road for me to feel like I'm getting any help. My wife comments on how jerky the car is driving when we have those systems. I don't feel like it's dangerous, and if I were falling asleep or something it could be helpful, but in 40+ years of driving I've had "falling asleep at the wheel" problems maybe 3 times - not something I need constant help for.

The one "driving aid" that I find actually useful is the following distance maintenance cruise control. I set that to the maximum distance it can reliably handle and it removes that "dimension" of driving problem from needing my constant attention - giving me back that attention to focus on other things (also driving / safety related.) "Dumb" cruise control works similarly when there's no traffic around at all, but having the following distance control makes it useful in traffic. Both kinds of cruise control have certain situations that you need to be aware of and ready to take control back at a moment's notice - preferably anticipating the situation and disengaging cruise control before it has a problem - but those exceptions are pretty rare / easily handled in practice.

Things like lane keeping seem to be more trouble than they're worth, to me in the situations I drive in.

Not "AI" but a driving tech that does help a lot is parking cameras. Having those additional perspectives from the camera(s) at different points on the vehicle is a big benefit during close-space maneuvers. Not too surprising that "AI" with access to those tools does better than normal drivers without.

the US the 50 states basically act like they are different countries instead of different states.

There's a lot of back and forth on that - through the last 50+ years the US federal government has done a lot to unify and centralize control. Visible things like the highway and air traffic systems, civil rights, federal funding of education and other programs which means the states either comply with federal "guidance" or they lose that (significant) money while still paying the same taxes...

making more informed decisions and realise that often the mom and pop store option is cheaper in the long run.

Informed, long run decisions don't seem to be a common practice in the US, especially in rural areas.

we had a store (the Jumbo) which used to not have discounts, but saw less people buying from them that they changed it so now they are offering discounts again.

In order for that to happen the Jumbo needs competition. In rural US areas that doesn't usually exist. There are examples of rural Florida WalMarts charging over double for products in their rural stores as compared to their stores in the cities 50 miles away - where they have competition. So, rural people have a choice: drive 100 miles for 50% off their purchases, or save the travel expense and get it at the local store. Transparently showing their strategy: the bigger ticket items that would be worth the trip into the city to save the margin are much closer in pricing.

retro gaming community

GameStop died here not long ago. I never saw the appeal in the first place: high prices to buy, insultingly low prices to sell, and they didn't really support older consoles/platforms - focusing always on the newer ones.

But, will you do it 24-7-365?

people are people and not tools

But this comparison is weighing people as tools vs alternative tools.

The human brain is consuming much less energy

Yes, but when you fully load the human brain's energy costs with 20 years of schooling, 20 years of "retirement" and old-age care, vacation, sleep, personal time, housing, transportation, etc. etc. - it adds up.

Our minds work on a fundamentally different principle then Turing machines.

Is that an advantage, or a disadvantage? I'm sure the answer depends on the setting.

Nah, I went to public high school - I got to see "the average" citizen who is now voting. While it is distressing that my ex-classmates now seem to control the White House, Congress and Supreme Court, what they're doing with it is not surprising at all - they've been talking this shit since the 1980s.

But, are these 1.7 trillion neuron networks available to drive YOUR car? Or are they time-shared among thousands or millions of users?

Human drivers are only safe when they're not distracted, emotionally disturbed, intoxicated, and physically challenged (vision, muscle control, etc.) 1% of the population has epilepsy, and a large number of them are in denial or simply don't realize that they have periodic seizures - until they wake up after their crash.

So, yeah, AI isn't perfect either - and it's not as good as an "ideal" human driver, but at what point will AI be better than a typical/average human driver? Not today, I'd say, but soon...

If an IQ of 100 is average, I'd rate AI at 80 and down for most tasks (and of course it's more complex than that, but as a starting point...)

So, if you're dealing with a filing clerk with a functional IQ of 75 in their role - AI might be a better experience for you.

Some of the crap that has been published on the internet in the past 20 years comes to an IQ level below 70 IMO - not saying I want more AI because it's better, just that - relatively speaking - AI is better than some of the pay-for-clickbait garbage that came before it.

A gun isn't dangerous, if you handle it correctly.

Same for an automobile, or aircraft.

If we build powerful AIs and put them "in charge" of important things, without proper handling they can - and already have - started crashing into crowds of people, significantly injuring them - even killing some.