The whole printing organs business will be based on using the patients own stem cells to create the new organ. Rejection problems will not exist with this technology.

While the purists might want no engine, that is kind of unrealistic given the need for a ship like this to maneuver into and out of busy modern ports. I suspect getting becalmed in the middle of a busy shipping channel would not be looked upon favorably by the port authorities. Either hire a tug, or start you own engine (which is difficult if you don't have one) and get out of that container ships way.

Maybe in a few decades. Maybe.

Too many issues, AI being a large one, but don't forget noise, traffic congestion (yes, there is only so much sky), reliability, cost.

Flying cars piloted by trained, responsible, sober people will be flying long before the AI piloted ones.

"Loyal wingmen" in close proximity to the manned controller should be less vulnerable to jamming, and could even use laser communications to maintain complete radio silence. The mixture of manned and unmanned aircraft is definitely the next step.

This reads like the first chapter of a 1950's pulp-magazine story. Right before the chapter when the first CleanTron 5001 tries to take over the world.

This assumes most of us actually spend that much time cleaning? Maybe a few minutes a couple of times a year... And cooking? A refrigerator with a built-in microwave could take over 90% of the cooking I ever do...

I think storage of hydrogen will work best when you are using it as a time-shifting storehouse. Generate it during the day when the sun shines and use it the following night to generate electricity when the sun is not shining. Storage for half a day, not half a year. The shorter the time it is in storage the less you loose through the walls of the storage container.

The whole point of putting a face on your humanoid race is to fool the real humans into think the device is "more human like" than it is. A psychological ploy.

Some fund raising is for purposes that most people support, some is for things that most people think is a waste of money. Even waste of money causes have to pay their employees salaries, retirement benefits, health insurance. No fraud at all.

Their project is one whose time I don't think has come yet. Lots of money to get some picture from a long distance fly-by that may or may not even conclusively identify what the object is. What would be needed would be an intercept and rendezvous that would require a probe that could match course and speed with the interstellar visitor. Don't think we can do that yet. At any sane cost anyway.

The problem with such silly stories is that aliens with interstellar travel capacity would never consider us a threat. They could exterminate us in minutes, or disarm us in a few more minutes. Even things that WE are thinking about creating would make the "conquest" of Earth a trivial task. Too many movies where the humans defeat the alien invaders have led people to think that somehow we would always win.

Indeed. The aliens would probably be the ones guiding the conversation, choosing what to say to who and when. Governments would never be able to control the dialog.

Given how short a time we have been able to identify such interstellar visitors (decades?) the odds that the first one we see is an actual interstellar craft is zero. This all sounds like a fund raising mission to me.

Question: Given what we know about Oumuamua's trajectory how many centuries ago did it last pass by another star? So some aliens built an interstellar probe, that took how many years to get to us, and all it did was fly though our solar system without even saying "Hi"?

The issue with longtermism is it allows billionaires to claim they are "speaking for those future trillions" when they ignore the poor of today, or even engineer a genocide today so the likelihood of those future people being born is increased.

The current preachers for longtermism will, of course, make lots of money today while writing and teaching and congratulating the billionaires on how wonderful their plans are.

Agreed. These could be good in a limited number of areas. Just as with tidal and wave energy generators, a good solution but only for very few places.

The real challenge is not the hardware, it is the software. You use a humanoid form so your robots can use devices made for people (drive a car, use a power drill, etc.). But what good is that form if the robot cannot use that device with the flexibility and dexterity and endless variations that humans can use that device?

What are the burger joints offering? That is a good indicator of what the minimum should be. Went through a Burger Czar drive-through today in New England, their sign said $16 an hour.