Not true. Even for a lower middle income country like mine, cars with manual gearboxes had become very rare (with the exception of cabs where they remain the norm).

Outside of the United States? Even then, I don't think this has been a true statement for at least a decade, if not more with the rise of EVs in places other than the USA.

I don't think I've seen a manual gearbox in Canada in decades.

This is only still true because in the parts of the world with the most population, cost is the #1 deciding factor in vehicle purchasing. Manuals are cheaper. Globally the industry is trending against manuals over time.

Also in large parts of Europe if you pass your driving test in an automatic car you _can't_ drive a manual, so it becomes the default out of convenience.

And how is that relevant here?

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theory: there are two groups that a lot of hackernews commenters fall into. And these two groups clash on every Ai post every day. One camp only uses Ai to write code and thinks of them strictly as LLMs with a clearly understood design and purpose but that show some surprising behavior, they've watched youtube videos that show how everything ties together computationally and mathematically, from neural nets to RL, etc. and dont see them as capital A, Ai. It's another tool in the toolbox, and thinking about them in the way you describe, as something closer to capital Ai would cause severe cognitive dissonance, akin to the idea that a hammer could hop out of the toolbox and start building a house. Even though what you've done is just take one small step of critical thinking, it would be a leap to the other camp members, who are themselves, quite technical thinkers.

HN posters: try not to deploy a slur challenge: impossible