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This seems to be in keeping with Google's "Moon Shot" philosophy — investing in some projects with potentially high payoff, but low probability of success. If
by microtherion 7y ago
This seems to be in keeping with Google's "Moon Shot" philosophy — investing in some projects with potentially high payoff, but low probability of success.
If Tesla were pursuing a project like this, they'd probably announce that they were expecting all their cars to ship with cold fusion reactors by 2020 — and then start hiring a team ;-)
- vidarh 7y agoThere's an Iron Man story arc lone from a few years ago where Tony Stark starts a car company using his repulsor batteries as the energy supply..
- dwighttk 7y agosometimes it seems as if Elon thinks Iron Man is a prophesy about his life...
- vidarh 7y agoIn this case I think the arc is new enough that it likely was inspired directly by Elon.
- JulianMorrison 7y agoMusk and Stark are coroutines...
- chasd00 7y agoan ex-gf of mine use to say Elon was an alien and needs humans to help him develop the technology he needs to get back home.
- arethuza 7y ago"They are already here among us – they just call themselves Hungarians." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martians_(scientists) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martians_(scientists)
- cpeterso 7y agoLike David Bowie in The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976): > [Bowie's character] uses the advanced technology of his home planet to patent many inventions on Earth, and acquires tremendous wealth as the head of a technology-based conglomerate, World Enterprises Corporation, aided by leading patent attorney Oliver Farnsworth. His wealth is needed to construct a space vehicle with the intention of shipping water back to his home planet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Fell_to_Earth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Fell_to_Earth
- thaumasiotes 7y agoSeems like a good example of https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ReedRichardsIsUseless https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ReedRichardsIsUs... . No one ever thought cheap energy might be helpful before a few years ago? It's still not useful outside of cars?
- vidarh 7y agoThe story line actually covers it quite well in having him struggle with the thought of whether or not he can make them safe enough (e.g. he's other places talked of the battery in his chest having the energy of a small sun) to make them accessible. The story line in question comes after one where someone has scavenged his tech from broken parts of Iron Man armor and used them in terrorist attacks, and at the same time as he's put together a purely "defensive" Iron Man suit for Pepper Potts called Rescue, and he decides to rebuild his company around civilian applications of the underlying tech, Iron Man is actually quite interesting in that respect, as a lot of the story lines delve into him struggling with whether or not he should produce weapons to stop bad guys or come up with a design to find a counter to them before a bad guy comes up with the same design, vs. finding civilian applications without inadvertently handing bad guys new weapons. Some of those story lines make poor arguments, but at least the Iron Man story lines are trying unlike FF, I feel, where it's "let's whip up something new amazing before breakfast and then never do anything with it", while Tony Stark grapples with the issues of commercializing his inventions all the time, and often has to deal with fallout from it.
- zamalek 7y agoEven if nothing comes from LENR, there were other interesting (probably not nuclear) things going on that have since been ignored because of the scientific taboo. The quintessential electrolysis experiment wasn't entirely inert, supposedly, even if nothing nuclear was happening. Google could stumble into something very profitable.
- usaphp 7y agoI know you are joking, but unlike Google, Tesla at least tries to finish whatever they start and actually deliver stuff, while google quickly jumps the ship if the thing does not work out and abandoned all their customers
- devoply 7y agoPlease don't call willing experiment participants customers.
- Analemma_ 7y agoThe problem with Tesla is when they take your money promising to deliver something, when they can't. Full self-driving capability is never, ever coming to the current-gen Teslas, no matter what Elon says - the sensory capability just isn't there. Google at least says "we can't support this profitably, so we won't" while Tesla engages in fraud.
- ChrisClark 7y agoNever? Even when we've already seen it working?
- stonogo 7y agoYou've been told you've seen it working. You have not seen full self-driving.
- anthonybsd 7y agoYou have? Care to share with the rest of us?
- smt88 7y agoAlphabet doesn't seem to abandon moonshots as easily as it does consumer SaaS products like Reader. They still have massive, on-going investments in anti-aging and self-driving vehicles. I don't know of any moonshots they've killed yet.
- jayalpha 7y agoI am excited. Worth looking into. Even if it violates (current) physical laws. Potential payoff to big. But I have also seen google projects that did not look scientific sound to me. Measuring blood glucose with contact lenses? How? Lag time is around one hour for eye liquid. Your are dead and the sensor does not know it yet. Your need to be below 10 min lag time.
- markrages 7y agoAn idea that violates physical laws is just wishful thinking, no matter how big the potential payoff.
- jayalpha 7y agoYou should study the scientific method. Nothing is set in stone, science is an evolutionary process. Even the scientific method itself. If experiments violate CURRENT laws of physics, the laws have to be revised. Guess how we came to our current atomic model from the plum pudding atom model?
- modzu 7y agothis is absolutely true, but, what drives experiments are hypotheses, not just wishful thinking. a hypothesis is "a supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation." it's arguable whether "is cold fusion possible?" is a valid hypothesis, because currently there is no accepted reason, evidence, observation, or starting point for that investigation. only the hope, the wish: "what if it was..."
- jayalpha 7y agoWell, trust me, what drives most experiments is not hypotheses but "this is strange" results. "it's arguable whether "is cold fusion possible?" is a valid hypothesis, because currently there is no accepted reason," I am not a nuclear physicist, but my chemistry is good enough to know that it should not be possible. But take into consideration that Fleischmann was a pretty good chemist. Possible he fucked up. Looking backwards likely. But discussion is possible only based on date. Not believes what should or should not be possible. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleischmann%E2%80%93Pons_experiment#Revival_and_LENR https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleischmann%E2%80%93Pons_exper...
- shadowtree 7y agoWhich Google moonshot has paid off so far?
- CobrastanJorji 7y agoThe "Google Brain" deep learning research has probably worked out extremely well for Google. Self-driving cars seem pretty likely to make bank within a decade.
- v7p1Qbt1im 7y agohttps://x.company/projects/ https://x.company/projects/ A couple of them. In terms of economic success they only really need one every 10 years too succeed as every one of them might be worth tens to hundreds of billions. It‘s also a great way to find out what ideas don‘t work without too much risk.