If it took the fax machine about 100 years to become prevalent (there were many fax-like inventions, but the earliest one that came closest to the machine we know today was invented in 1881), then it's probably going to take more than a decade for quantum computing to give rise to AI ;)
My point in all this is simple: absolutes are the devil's playground. DDT was and continues to be a very useful pesticide that should be used with extreme caution. It should not be banned absolutely because it saves lives, but it should not be used indiscriminately because of what I and John S had said.
DDT is EXTREMELY effective in battling outbreaks of mosquito-born diseases, even in tropical climates, but indiscriminate sprayings run the high risk of developing DDT-resistance.
Growing up in a tropical country beset with all sorts of mosquito-born diseases, I came to appreciate the government's decision to withhold indiscriminate DDT spraying and live with a low, basal rate of infection in order to reserve the use of the pesticide to quickly quell malaria outbreaks.
Growing up in a tropical country beset with all sorts of mosquito-born diseases, I came to appreciate the government's decision to withhold indiscriminate DDT spraying and live with a low, basal rate of infection in order to reserve the use of the pesticide to quickly quell malaria outbreaks.