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Can you imagine the guy that invented the locomotive that told investors that it is the future you only need to build specific rails for them to work and you ha
by zouhair 7y ago
Can you imagine the guy that invented the locomotive that told investors that it is the future you only need to build specific rails for them to work and you have to build miles and miles of them and no one can use those rails as they are meant only for trains and you also need to maintain them.
- kevingadd 7y agoWe already have trains and roads, if you're proposing another massive infrastructure investment where the consequences of underinvestment include 'people get hit by self-driving cars due to outdated map data', the bar you have to hit there is a lot higher than 'here's my idea for this locomotive, we build some rails in empty grassland and it'll take you somewhere 10 times faster than before'. It's not comparable. Self-driving is about convenience and PERHAPS scale, it's not presently enabling entirely new scenarios. And if the car is super expensive (as he points out, and as it currently is), it leads to a situation where the self-driving cars are owned by central powers instead of individual civilians, so now the cost equation for driving is different and you're giving up control over your own vehicle. They were talking about releasing waymo cars with no steering wheel!
- zouhair 7y agoNot really a counter-argument. The real counter-argument would be trains are not for private use, but cars are.
- gmueckl 7y agoRails and train cars were relatively old technology. By the time the steam locomotive was invented, there were already horse drawn trains [1]. So your example is not quite backed by history. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_horse-drawn_railways https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_horse-drawn_railways
- zouhair 7y agoEven now we have a lot of maps, roads, electronics and much more already made.