And years later we may have some useful data, if a study can be conducted ethically in the first place. Meanwhile, the environment around us continues to change at a pace the likes of which humans have never experienced. Whatever this era of LLMs does (or does not) do to improve the situation, I am firmly confident that years-to-decades-long human testing is not the endgame of medical science, but rather a long and inconvenient pitstop. There's a lot of those in the history of medicine.
Randomized controlled trials are a bummer of a 'gold standard'. Extremely expensive, extremely slow and in many cases absolutely impossible. I'm not an AI true believer, but I do hope it offers an alternative or at least enables some desperately needed efficiencies.
> Because it is based on past cases, it doesn’t apply to present cases if (1) the effectiveness of treatment has changed or – often more importantly – (2) diagnostic practices have changed.
This was my key takeaway. In a society organized around statistics, we're struggling through an era where those statistics expire faster everyday, and faster than new data can be generated. I can almost relate to the mindset that devalues "facts" because they're increasingly complicated, rapidly changing and come with too many caveats.
The expectation being that they should instead endure energy shortages for the common good until their renewable installations catch up with demand? A high bar, especially for a nation with a greater share of its electricity from renewables than most US states.
The state of California has a knack for this kind of light extortion when it comes to the local megacorps. I also wonder what kind of mass transit you envision for the vast rural regions that make up half of this country that are spectacularly ill-suited for any known modes of public transit.
San Francisco is the crucible (by US standards) of dealing with pedestrians and I'm still shocked they launched there so early. But with something as distinct and vulnerable as school busses, it's time to think about hardware installation so automated vehicles can "see" farther ahead.
Belgium has been doing it for 25 years, though not without some issues. I'm happy to let other countries lead the way on this since we have a perfectly viable alternative.
The difference is only around $4k. And there's an upside to have an affordable EV resale market. Plus, if you're planning to own a new car for 5 years or more, you have to wonder what the resale market for gas cars will look like in the 2030's.
A lot of highly skilled people are perfectly happy to stay at their job earing 60% of what they "could" be making because they have other priorities that don't involve increasing shareholder value.
I live in NYC and 9 out of 10 meals I have delivered are hot, fresh and show up on a bicycle in about 25 minutes. I know that not the norm, but a good 20-30 million Americans live in areas with an astounding number of fast and diverse delivery options and it should confuse no one as to why people take great advantage of it.
And those same urban-dwellers are far less likely to own a car, and far more likely to have a tiny kitchen.
It costs something like $10k-$12k per year to own a car in the US. That's a lot of robotaxi rides. But I can't imagine self-driven cars disappearing either, though I can imagine them being banned in city centers within a decade.
How would restaurants get food if there was no food delivery? How would grocery stores re-stock? It sound to me like we one hundred percent need food delivery and you're just arguing about the specifics.
I think you're dramatically underestimating the power of corporations in previous eras. The Gilded Era and the Reagan-Clinton years had their own versions of super-extreme corporate power, with long-lasting repercussions. If anything, we're seeing a relative rise in the power of governments, exemplified by things like EU bureaucracy, growing protectionism, and the right-wing backlash autocracies all over the world.
Gig mobility work is mostly doomed, but if we had to pick a profession to prune it would be high on the list. And it's mostly a young and flexible workforce. On the other hand, 3.5 million truckers with a median age pushing 50 might be something we should start thinking about.
As a thought experiment this is great, but I don't think mortality is the best example. Sure, reporting on gun deaths can be written off as sensationalism, but gun deaths in the US are a stark contrast to most other wealthy societies, which makes it newsworthy. And though I do want to be informed about leading causes of death for the elderly (since I hope to be one someday), I'm much more interested in things that are killing people prematurely, suddenly or unexpectedly.
I understood it when Tesla was the path towards widespread electric car adoption. Now they have tons of competition and an aging lineup, I'm amazed they're competitive at all in East Asia.
You speak as if you've never read a YouTube comment section before. Yet you say you've read millions of comments? Maybe consider not reading rage-bait garbage all night long and talk to real people instead.
It's a cudgel. It doesn't matter if it makes sense, it fits in your hand and you can whack your perceived enemies. As always, logic doesn't matter, only owning the libs matters.
Trump's America. Don't forget to wipe your phone before travelling. You don't need to break any laws to have your life ruined, you just have to stumble into the crosshairs of the most vindictive leader we have ever had to endure.
Before authoritarian rule, Venezuela was one of the wealthiest nations in the global South (if not one of the wealthiest period in the 50-60s). Then Chávez came along and stacked the courts with lackeys, intimidated critical media outlets and harassed journalists, diverted state spending for political patronage, demanded loyalty oaths from underlings, injected "Bolivarian" ideology into schools and sports, took control of private industry...
I'd tell you what he did to elections but we'll all find out soon enough.