I still listen to Dancing Mad

and a lot of other parts where its just people talking at legnth - its only interesting the first time, but its almost half the game and really detracts from replayability

Storing carbon as sodium formate has the same problem as storing it as trees - bacteria will eat it and release CO2. Its also not useful as portable fuel - its energy density is an order of magnitude less than kerosene.

Its potential use as a battery is interesting though. I can imagine a system where a long lasting catalyst is used to fill a tank of sodium formate using waste CO2 from industrial processes and excess electrical generation capacity from renewable sources like wind and solar, and the machines that use sodium formate to generate electricity at times of low wind and solar generation could potentially be less polluting overall compared to mining lithium for new batteries and recycling worn out lithium batteries.

AI does not learn and transform something like a human does.

But they do learn. How human-like that learning may be isn't relevant. A parrot learns to talk differently than a human does too, but African greys can still hold a conversation. Likewise, when an AI learns how to make art by studying what others have made, they may not do it in exactly the same way a human does it, but the products of the process are their own creations just as much as the creations of human artists that parrot other human artists' styles and techniques.

Everyone should be assumed to be able to look at it, learn from it, and add your style to their artistic toolbox. That's an intrinsic property of all art. When you put it on display, don't be surprised or outraged when people or AIs look at it.

Yeah, that's what I meant.

There were two hybrid minivans on the market a couple years ago when I went shopping for one. One plug-in from Chrysler and a non-plug-in from Toyota. Both cost about as much as a Model 3.

Or maybe an accessibility improvement. You don't need to practice creating your own works of art over many years anymore, or have enough money to commission a master artist. The AI artists are good enough and work for cheap.

That's still too cheap.

There's probably a price that could be paid to encourage a higher birth rate, but I doubt the governments who have attempted such programs were willing to aim high enough.

Context matters in this discussion.

The moderators of the lemmy instance OP got banned from have Russian and Chinese iconography in their profiles - its explicitly authoritarian and arguably communist in name only in order to attract naive idealists who otherwise would be against authoritarianism.

Yeah, I've read the books and watched the movies, but still only got 12/24, or exactly the same as I'd expect to get by picking answers at random.