There are five main reasons of failure for a bloke who wants a council to dig up a landfill site to find his iPhone-sized hard drive allegedly containing £275m worth of Bitcoin, according to AI.
James Howells lost the valuable piece of kit 10 years ago when his ex accidentally discarded it, and he has been imploring Newport City Council to scour the landfill site on Docks Way to find the hard drive and access his cryptocurrency.
But despite a tireless campaign, the council has repeatedly refused Mr Howells’ requests to access the site, citing reasons including permit issues and the unrealistic prospect of recovering the drive.
READ MORE: Bloke whose ex binned £275m Bitcoin hard drive set to sue local council for £1bn
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And Google-powered artificial intelligence bot Gemini has highlighted the main reasons just why Mr Howells’ prospects of finding the drive are so bleak.
The AI’s five reasons are:
Time elapsed: The hard drive was thrown away in 2013, over 10 years ago. Landfills constantly receive new waste, burying older layers deeper and deeper.
Landfill size: The Docks Way landfill site is vast, covering over 500 acres. Locating a specific small object within such a massive area is like searching for a needle in a haystack.
Landfill operations: Waste in landfills is compacted and compressed over time, further reducing the space occupied by individual items and making them even harder to find.
Recovery efforts: While Mr. Howell has proposed various recovery methods, including robot dogs and AI, the practicality and effectiveness of these approaches in such a challenging environment are questionable.
Technical degradation: Even if the hard drive were located, it’s highly probable that it would be damaged or degraded beyond the point of data recovery after spending over a decade underground exposed to the elements and potential physical stress.
The AI language model added that Mr Howells should move on and said: “While it’s understandable for him to hold onto hope, it’s crucial to manage expectations realistically.
“Focusing on moving forward and learning from this unfortunate experience might be more constructive than clinging to an improbable outcome.”
It concluded: “Considering the overwhelming negative factors, the chances of James Howell recovering his hard drive are unfortunately extremely low, probably approaching zero.”
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