

This is my immediate thought too. I have been under the impression that, after having their infrastructure partially nationalized during the Bolivarian revolution Chevron and the like viewed Venezuelan oil as too risky to invest the absolute shitloads of money they would need to to expand their production beyond where it already is. Maybe Chevron is uniquely positioned for this because of the extent of their preexisting infrastructure, but I’m curious to see if they just slow walk the deal until Trumps out, or something?
I certainly think the possibility of Venezuelans throwing a wrench in the plans after anger with the theft of their sovereignty boils over is greater than zero, but, like, who knows what’s being said beyond public knowledge. Maybe the bad taste left by Maduro is enough where thats just not a risk? Maybe there’s some other assurances we aren’t privvy to? Maybe Chevron is just greedy enough to try regardless?
My favorite chart from this report is the one on page ~230ish where they show science benchmark test scores for students who use AI to study, and it basically just makes you perform much worse at any level (except one data point where the AI users perform only slightly worse). I’ve kept a few print outs of the page to hand out to the AI-pilled students I work with. In one of their words “wow. This is pretty damning”.