Futurists have a habit of thinking exponentially for things that ultimately end up with asymptotic progress. Driving cars is ultimately about learning and lear

Futurists have a habit of thinking exponentially for things that ultimately end up with asymptotic progress. Driving cars is ultimately about learning and learning is asymptotic. A child typically progresses from not knowing how to control their vocal cords to 50% of their peak vocabulary within 5 years. It takes several times that amount of time to be able to capably work a white collar job (a feat many fail at), and decades more to be able to make a meaningful and attributable contribution to society (something almost all fail at). The genome project is a terrible example because mapping progress is a second order effect to the actual technological progress of learning how to map the genome. It would be reasonable to project that once we know how to build a level 5 car that AVs will consume 100% of miles travelled within a very short period of time. But learning how to get to level 5 could very well be asymptotic in the same way that it takes decades of asymptotic refinement to turn an exponentially learning toddler into a PhD.