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> The DARPA grand challenges have bootstrapped: I have a contrarian opinion about the impact of DARPA and related programs (ARPA-e especially). To some extent,

> The DARPA grand challenges have bootstrapped: I have a contrarian opinion about the impact of DARPA and related programs (ARPA-e especially). To some extent, there is a confusion of cause and effect. DARPA is good at identifying possible nascent technologies and funding them. They then have a flag planted, and can claim "we helped invent X", which is hard to disprove. But was it because of DARPA involvement, or was DARPA merely there at the right time? They have definitely funded plenty of projects that go nowhere. ARPA-e makes this strategy explicit. They'll give money to an up-and-coming startup between rounds and then claim all later investment as "follow-on funding". They then report "follow-on funding" as a success metric to congress, which seems easy to game. ARPA-e has been around for over 10 years and I don't think they can point to anything coming out of the program as a legitimate game changer. I do think the applied research programs do some good and has some impact, mostly as a way to convene the broader technology community. But for the most part I would rather have the government focus on funding basic research instead of applied research.

koheripbal 6y ago
There is a feedback loop here. They help fund existing ideas, get more people/companies involved, raise awareness on certain problems, and motivate more participants to do relevant research. So do they "invent"? ...well that's a semantic argument. The point is they absolutely help make things happen.
- shoguning 6y ago
  My question is... do they really? They happen to be around when tech moves, but would it have moved without them? It's a historical counterfactual, and hard to argue about. I'm skeptical and I'm more skeptical of ARPA-e.
wyattpeak 6y ago
What's the difference between "helping invent X" and "identifying possible nascent technologies and funding them"? Nascent technologies aren't a fait accompli. Without funding, something expensive like a launch system isn't going to get anywhere no matter how clever an idea someone has on paper.
jbay808 6y ago
At least in the self-driving car case, it's hard to say they didn't have a big impact. For universities to allow, fund, and support students to form engineering student teams, there usually needs to be some kind of official competition that the team can compete in. In this case, those university teams made major progress on what was at the time seen as an intractable problem. Google and its ilk then headhunted all of the students in the top performing teams to launch their self-driving car division, and now here we are.

koheripbal 6y ago

There is a feedback loop here. They help fund existing ideas, get more people/companies involved, raise awareness on certain problems, and motivate more participants to do relevant research. So do they "invent"? ...well that's a semantic argument. The point is they absolutely help make things happen.

shoguning 6y ago
My question is... do they really? They happen to be around when tech moves, but would it have moved without them? It's a historical counterfactual, and hard to argue about. I'm skeptical and I'm more skeptical of ARPA-e.

wyattpeak 6y ago

What's the difference between "helping invent X" and "identifying possible nascent technologies and funding them"? Nascent technologies aren't a fait accompli. Without funding, something expensive like a launch system isn't going to get anywhere no matter how clever an idea someone has on paper.

jbay808 6y ago

At least in the self-driving car case, it's hard to say they didn't have a big impact. For universities to allow, fund, and support students to form engineering student teams, there usually needs to be some kind of official competition that the team can compete in. In this case, those university teams made major progress on what was at the time seen as an intractable problem. Google and its ilk then headhunted all of the students in the top performing teams to launch their self-driving car division, and now here we are.