What AI "decision making" does in our processes is: write the reports exactly like the procedure says they should be written, and fills them with whatever you want to hear - looking up convenient references to back up your opinions. You probably should double check the references yourself to be sure they actually exist (though I think AI is getting better at checking its own work for things like this lately) - but... yeah. Ask it once and it will give you "an opinion" that doesn't take into account all of the factors that matter to you. So, as you explain all the factors, it also becomes obvious what you want to hear, so after several rounds the obliging AI eventually not only "sees things your way" but can pile on the BS as deep as you ask it to to back up those opinions. What would have taken days to research and write can be done in an hour or so.
MangoCats
I believe it was 100% deliberate.
I also believe that they employed relatively naive near-children, barely capable of doing the axe swinging, to do most of the cutting work, exactly because those children believed the men telling them they were "doing the right thing here" and didn't know enough to stand up against the damage they were doing. Unfortunately, this is more of a human trait than a human child trait, as demonstrated by Milgram.
In the bigger picture, it seems that the people calling the shots actually want the current administration, and especially its elected president, to look as awful, stupid, cruel, idiotic, incompetent, moronic, despicable, corrupt, and generally un-electable as possible, and DOGE was some of the earliest action taken to make this happen. Cutting the screworm prevention program, gutting the medical monitoring that prevents 6000 people from getting explosive diarhhea parasites from their lettuce. Now they're openly advertising: for pay access to early insider trading info and releasing documentation showing that Russia helped get him elected... won't release the Epstein files without a 3 thousand ring media circus, but here you go: Putin's payola on a plate...
The question is: what comes next?
the formula is number of possible symbols (letters, numbers) S to the power of the number of characters on the plate N, or S^N, so if you add one more character out of 31 possible symbols, then you multiply by (another) 31 available combinations.
6 characters (A-Z 0-9) gives you 2,176,782,336 combinations.
Even if you take out some confusing combos like O0, 1I, 5S, 8B ... 6 characters of 31 different kinds gives you 887,503,681
Customized images, yes. Overlapping alphanumeric codes (two vehicles with the same sequence?) NO. Maybe it was necessary in the 1960s, but it is long since past time for issuance of alpha-numeric unique identifiers to become... unique throughout the states.
I think speed limits help people not die
I do too, except the way they have evolved is terrible.
They're (almost all) the same day, night, rain, shine, sleet, snow or ice.
They're primarily enforced on nice sunny days when it's not uncomfortable for the officers to be standing outside their cars.
They're almost never enforced on the busiest roads during rush hours.
Within the US road funding system, the busiest roads get their speed limits raised in order to increase their "Level of Service" to prevent them from losing federal funding. US1 south out of downtowm Miami is a damn nighmare at 45mph with all the traffic it carries, but other similarly configured roads which are straighter with better sightlines fewer side streets and less traffic get 35mph speed limits because they won't lose their funding for low LOS issues. (my info may be out of date about US1, I left Miami 25 years ago, but while I was working at DOT classifying roads in the 1990s I had to commute that death trap.)
And then you can start talking about the small towns that use speed enforcement as a source of revenue.
Which makes sense, since that’s where it’s easy to speed.
Depends on how you look at "makes sense." It's easy to speed, it's relatively safer to speed (except in blinding snow conditions when the cameras probably don't work too well...) So, if "makes sense" is about maximizing revenue, then sure: more people will be breaking the law where the law itself makes less sense...
Yes, if you want to post a clearly visible easily readable sign: "SPEED LIMIT 80kph, VIOLATORS WILL RECEIVE FINES UP TO $5000 BY MAIL" then that's fair game. If it's a camera on a post with no notice and just the normal SPEED LIMIT signs that mean nothing of the sort the world over... that's like a troll hiding under a bridge shaking down unsuspecting travelers as they pass.
Abuse of those files is another problem. I'd say it's a separate problem that's possibly even more important to deal with, but it's different from over-enforcement based on the stated purpose of the data collection.
Pop up fines - impediment to free travel - arbitrary tax collection. I mean, if you want to go back to Roman times where any government officials you happen to meet can just grab you by the shoulder and "collect taxes for the emperor" because you happen to be within reach - you can call that "not evil" if you like. I call it regression of civilization.
Give it a vibe to document the support, it can do that - it can even do it in non-hallucinatory fashion, if you tell it to.