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Yeah... except this is more complex than Gartner's hype cycle captures. This isn't k8s or openstack. There are real technical challenges to making this work,

Yeah... except this is more complex than Gartner's hype cycle captures. This isn't k8s or openstack. There are real technical challenges to making this work, not that it doesn't magically solve all things - it can't solve anything yet. The long tail still appears quite long.

toolz 6y ago
It seems to me that we don't need to improve the tech at all. We just need some pragmatic infrastructure to support the existing tech.
- csa 6y ago
  The government budget crisis that the pandemic will cause as tax receipts decrease and outflows increase might be a catalyst for this. I could see a big company or conglomerate of companies being willing to take over part or all of certain parts of road development and maintenance as long as they can have one or more dedicated autonomous lanes. I imagine that there will be a lot of room for creative solutions over the next 10 years.
  - eecc 6y ago
    That’s frankly dystopian. It’s much worse than deregulation; it’s the dissolution of a uniform state. A return to the Middle Ages, its warlords and its robber barons.
    - csa 6y ago
      > That’s frankly dystopian. It’s much worse than deregulation; it’s the dissolution of a uniform state. A return to the Middle Ages, it’s warlords and it’s robber barons. You just described my best guess of the future (at least of the US). In fact, you might be able to say that we are already moving that direction given how much influence large corporations and industries have over our government. Note that I am not happy about my prediction, but my eyes are open to what is happening around me.
  - sjg007 6y ago
    Doubtful. Taxes ain’t going away.
    - csa 6y ago
      > Doubtful. Taxes ain’t going away. Which part is doubtful? I didn’t suggest that taxes would go away. I suggested that tax receipts (the amount received by government) will decrease due to reduced economic activity during the pandemic. This is a fact (it has already happened). This would give the tech companies an opportunity to solve some governmental budget shortfalls by relieving some of the burden in exchange for some access rights.
- xiphias2 6y ago
  There are lots of tech improvements, but many of them are public, so even just waiting helps. Using EfficientNet instead of ResNet, depth detection algorithms, better object classifiers are available than just a few years ago. I believe that there's less than 5 years between the first company achieving self driving and many other companies.
  - pdelgallego 6y ago
    AI algorithmic progress is outpacing Moore’s Law at it best. Compared to 2012, it now takes 44 times less compute to train a neural network to the level of AlexNet. How that affect self-driven car is still to be determine, but progress is very real https://openai.com/blog/ai-and-efficiency/ https://openai.com/blog/ai-and-efficiency/
    - jowday 6y ago
      This is only in terms of effeciency, not in terms of accuracy of overall performance.
      - solarkraft 6y ago
        Of course, but it's a great example - there is certainly a lot of progress in the other dimensions as well. However this gain also directly translates to a real-world result improvement: You can now train a lot more at the same cost.
tech-historian 6y ago
Agreed, the tech will take time to become viable. But Bezos is patient, is he not? I mean, he founded Blue Origin in 2000 and it finally emerged from its self-imposed silence in 2015.
- tim-- 6y ago
  Well, I mean, back in 2006, Bezos' company was saying that they could be launching into space as early as 2010, so I don't think it was self imposed silence for that long. (Source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB116312683235519444 https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB116312683235519444)
- aptxkid 6y ago
  The hard thing to do, which Bezos does very well, is to stay focused, patient and stay invested. Now it’s even easier to be even more patient as amazon has a very deep pocket.

toolz 6y ago

It seems to me that we don't need to improve the tech at all. We just need some pragmatic infrastructure to support the existing tech.

csa 6y ago
The government budget crisis that the pandemic will cause as tax receipts decrease and outflows increase might be a catalyst for this. I could see a big company or conglomerate of companies being willing to take over part or all of certain parts of road development and maintenance as long as they can have one or more dedicated autonomous lanes. I imagine that there will be a lot of room for creative solutions over the next 10 years.
- eecc 6y ago
  That’s frankly dystopian. It’s much worse than deregulation; it’s the dissolution of a uniform state. A return to the Middle Ages, its warlords and its robber barons.
  - csa 6y ago
    > That’s frankly dystopian. It’s much worse than deregulation; it’s the dissolution of a uniform state. A return to the Middle Ages, it’s warlords and it’s robber barons. You just described my best guess of the future (at least of the US). In fact, you might be able to say that we are already moving that direction given how much influence large corporations and industries have over our government. Note that I am not happy about my prediction, but my eyes are open to what is happening around me.
- sjg007 6y ago
  Doubtful. Taxes ain’t going away.
  - csa 6y ago
    > Doubtful. Taxes ain’t going away. Which part is doubtful? I didn’t suggest that taxes would go away. I suggested that tax receipts (the amount received by government) will decrease due to reduced economic activity during the pandemic. This is a fact (it has already happened). This would give the tech companies an opportunity to solve some governmental budget shortfalls by relieving some of the burden in exchange for some access rights.
xiphias2 6y ago
There are lots of tech improvements, but many of them are public, so even just waiting helps. Using EfficientNet instead of ResNet, depth detection algorithms, better object classifiers are available than just a few years ago. I believe that there's less than 5 years between the first company achieving self driving and many other companies.
- pdelgallego 6y ago
  AI algorithmic progress is outpacing Moore’s Law at it best. Compared to 2012, it now takes 44 times less compute to train a neural network to the level of AlexNet. How that affect self-driven car is still to be determine, but progress is very real https://openai.com/blog/ai-and-efficiency/ https://openai.com/blog/ai-and-efficiency/
  - jowday 6y ago
    This is only in terms of effeciency, not in terms of accuracy of overall performance.
    - solarkraft 6y ago
      Of course, but it's a great example - there is certainly a lot of progress in the other dimensions as well. However this gain also directly translates to a real-world result improvement: You can now train a lot more at the same cost.

tech-historian 6y ago

Agreed, the tech will take time to become viable. But Bezos is patient, is he not? I mean, he founded Blue Origin in 2000 and it finally emerged from its self-imposed silence in 2015.

tim-- 6y ago
Well, I mean, back in 2006, Bezos' company was saying that they could be launching into space as early as 2010, so I don't think it was self imposed silence for that long. (Source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB116312683235519444 https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB116312683235519444)
aptxkid 6y ago
The hard thing to do, which Bezos does very well, is to stay focused, patient and stay invested. Now it’s even easier to be even more patient as amazon has a very deep pocket.