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This: > “I’m an optimist: I believe that there is an endless supply of huge problems affecting humanity.” combined with this: > “I think we could meet it, bu

by dharmon 10y ago

This: > “I’m an optimist: I believe that there is an endless supply of huge problems affecting humanity.” combined with this: > “I think we could meet it, but it would be more like 15 to 20 years.” That was too far away, which was why she recommended killing it. ...seem to be fundamentally at odds. Or, at the least, leave an extremely narrow sliver of projects: big problems that can be solved in under 10 years. And how many projects started out in the engineer's mind as a short task but turned into a decade-long struggle? Also, I can't look at a picture of that guy in rollerblades without thinking of this: http://www.businessinsider.com/google-x-astro-teller-hbo-silicon-valley-2016-6 http://www.businessinsider.com/google-x-astro-teller-hbo-sil...

forrestthewoods 10y ago
We all stand on the shoulders of giants. Huge problems are still solved. Small problems are solved and accumulate until the large problems are suddenly not so large. Then in the blink of an eye they become commodities. Drones, virtual reality, autonomous vehicles.
- seanp2k2 10y ago
  And drones are still not yet commercially viable, VR is not yet amazing and in the hands of consumers / widely applicable outside of gaming, and autonomous vehicles are currently hyped-up versions of adaptive cruise control. We're still probably 10 years away for drones and autonomous driving, and 2-5 for VR in terms of large mainstream impact (possibly much longer for truly autonomous cars, depending on AI advancements, laws, etc...I wouldn't be surprised if it's more like 25-30 years until it's the norm).
  - IanCal 10y ago
    > And drones are still not yet commercially viable I don't really understand here, are you talking about a specific area that they're not commercially viable? Because people make and sell them for a profit.
    - jrockway 10y ago
      I also see a hell of a lot of drone shots on YouTube. What was once a cinematographic technique that costs millions of dollars, is now within reach of everyone. I think that's what you SV folks call "disruptive".
    - reitanqild 10y ago
      > Because people make and sell them for a profit. I'd say using it for a profit counts even more ;-)
  - Godel_unicode 10y ago
    As far as drones go, I guess it depends on what you mean by commercially viable: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_RQ-4_Global_Hawk https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_RQ-4_Global...
  - radiorental 10y ago
    Drones: Aside from the military applications. DJI is solving a significant problem in agriculture with this: http://www.dji.com/product/mg-1 http://www.dji.com/product/mg-1 VR: You say 'outside of gaming', are you aware of how large a market gaming is? (roughly a $25-$30B / year in terms of software alone, theres 50 million units of ps4 & xbone shipped) Autonomous vehicles: Are you aware that John Deere is a leader in this field? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/06/22/google-didnt-lead-the-self-driving-vehicle-revolution-john-deere-did/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/06/22...
  - lawless123 10y ago
    I know of people using drones to sell shots of homes to real-estate agents. A 3000 euro drone paid for itself within weeks.
tashi 10y ago
I agree. Think about the Manhattan Project: six years from concrete idea to working prototype. For three of those years, they had a significant chunk of Earth's smartest people living and working together with few distractions or outside responsibilities, an almost unlimited budget, supported by satellite sites all over the U.S. (plus Canada and Britain), logistic support supplied by the military with high priority, and, oh yeah, the motivation that if they didn't win the race Germany could rule the world. For today's most important "moonshots," like fusion and large scale water purification and pulling lots and lots of carbon out of the atmosphere and colonizing the solar system, we might not even have the kind of clear starting point they had, where the fundamental science had been done and the rest was mostly engineering. It doesn't seem like solving these problems is compatible with any kind of near-term profit motive. It feels like the corporate version of a lottery: if enough people buy lottery tickets, someone will win. It just probably won't be you. If enough organizations with gigantic piles of cash spend them on long-term research, life on this planet could get way better for all of us. But each organization would have to individually decide to do something whose most likely effect is just throwing money away. So how do you convince a corporation to start buying lottery tickets?
- visarga 10y ago
  You're better off funding research and startups directly. We need more DARPA and similar research investment funds.
  - lawless123 10y ago
    how could i do that?

by dharmon 10y ago

forrestthewoods 10y ago

We all stand on the shoulders of giants. Huge problems are still solved. Small problems are solved and accumulate until the large problems are suddenly not so large. Then in the blink of an eye they become commodities. Drones, virtual reality, autonomous vehicles.

seanp2k2 10y ago
And drones are still not yet commercially viable, VR is not yet amazing and in the hands of consumers / widely applicable outside of gaming, and autonomous vehicles are currently hyped-up versions of adaptive cruise control. We're still probably 10 years away for drones and autonomous driving, and 2-5 for VR in terms of large mainstream impact (possibly much longer for truly autonomous cars, depending on AI advancements, laws, etc...I wouldn't be surprised if it's more like 25-30 years until it's the norm).
- IanCal 10y ago
  > And drones are still not yet commercially viable I don't really understand here, are you talking about a specific area that they're not commercially viable? Because people make and sell them for a profit.
  - jrockway 10y ago
    I also see a hell of a lot of drone shots on YouTube. What was once a cinematographic technique that costs millions of dollars, is now within reach of everyone. I think that's what you SV folks call "disruptive".
  - reitanqild 10y ago
    > Because people make and sell them for a profit. I'd say using it for a profit counts even more ;-)
- Godel_unicode 10y ago
  As far as drones go, I guess it depends on what you mean by commercially viable: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_RQ-4_Global_Hawk https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_RQ-4_Global...
- radiorental 10y ago
  Drones: Aside from the military applications. DJI is solving a significant problem in agriculture with this: http://www.dji.com/product/mg-1 http://www.dji.com/product/mg-1 VR: You say 'outside of gaming', are you aware of how large a market gaming is? (roughly a $25-$30B / year in terms of software alone, theres 50 million units of ps4 & xbone shipped) Autonomous vehicles: Are you aware that John Deere is a leader in this field? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/06/22/google-didnt-lead-the-self-driving-vehicle-revolution-john-deere-did/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/06/22...
- lawless123 10y ago
  I know of people using drones to sell shots of homes to real-estate agents. A 3000 euro drone paid for itself within weeks.

tashi 10y ago

I agree. Think about the Manhattan Project: six years from concrete idea to working prototype. For three of those years, they had a significant chunk of Earth's smartest people living and working together with few distractions or outside responsibilities, an almost unlimited budget, supported by satellite sites all over the U.S. (plus Canada and Britain), logistic support supplied by the military with high priority, and, oh yeah, the motivation that if they didn't win the race Germany could rule the world. For today's most important "moonshots," like fusion and large scale water purification and pulling lots and lots of carbon out of the atmosphere and colonizing the solar system, we might not even have the kind of clear starting point they had, where the fundamental science had been done and the rest was mostly engineering. It doesn't seem like solving these problems is compatible with any kind of near-term profit motive. It feels like the corporate version of a lottery: if enough people buy lottery tickets, someone will win. It just probably won't be you. If enough organizations with gigantic piles of cash spend them on long-term research, life on this planet could get way better for all of us. But each organization would have to individually decide to do something whose most likely effect is just throwing money away. So how do you convince a corporation to start buying lottery tickets?

visarga 10y ago
You're better off funding research and startups directly. We need more DARPA and similar research investment funds.
- lawless123 10y ago
  how could i do that?