There are problems where we know how difficult the problem is. These problems, you can just throw money at them to make them work and the skill is in figuring o

There are problems where we know how difficult the problem is. These problems, you can just throw money at them to make them work and the skill is in figuring out how to do it cheaply. There are other problems where we don't even know what we're missing. I see people, all the time, try to extrapolate current progress on problems where we don't know what puzzle pieces we're missing. Nobody knew what it was going to take to build self-driving cars, nor do we know what it will take today, but the hype machine that sucks in funding and grants and produces nothing pretended like this was a problem we understood and just had to throw money at it. I've found that asking "do we know what we don't know yet?" has been a surprisingly good way to cut through the bullshit over the years. I'd say "I told you so" if anyone knew who I was or had any reason to listen to me.