Generic method type inference when the target type has a wildcard

Question

I understand that the compiler uses the target type to determine the type argument that makes the generic method invocation applicable. For instance, in the following statem

Answer 1

What is the inferred type in this case? Is it Object? Or it doesn't really matter due to the wildcard telling the compiler any type is possible?

On one level, it's kind of a philosophical question, because the type argument does not have any effect on the compiled bytecode, so it doesn't really matter what it is specifically. The only thing that matters is whether or not it's impossible to satisfy the bounds and context. As long as the compiler can prove that there exists some type that could work, then in my opinion, it should be able to go ahead and compile it without needing to come up with an actual type.