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When people think flying cars, they don't think of something without wheels that can only land in certain spots that requires years of training to operate that
by rexreed 5y ago
When people think flying cars, they don't think of something without wheels that can only land in certain spots that requires years of training to operate that is significantly expensive to be outside of the reach of 99%.
They think of the car that anyone of legal driving age with a reasonable amount of money that anyone with some income can purchase.
No, helicopters are not flying cars. And no, dishwashers aren't what people would think of when they think of robots. Something that has a microprocessor in it isn't automatically a robot.
- stcredzero 5y agoWhen people think flying cars, they don't think something without wheels that can only land in certain spots that requires years of training to operate that is significantly expensive to be outside of the reach of 99%. I think if one eliminates the training requirement, reduces the cost, and increase the safety, then we don't need them to be road vehicles. Achieve the above, and we'll have flying taxis!
- rexreed 5y agoIf it weren't for many of the other problems of helicopters including convenience and noise. How many helicopters will fit in an IKEA parking lot? And how many will be able to bring back whatever you buy there? Extend that thought experiment a bit. You might be able to achieve the transportation of people in controlled circumstances, but not much else.
- medium_burrito 5y agoYou do realize small ducted fans are an order of magnitude louder than a helicopter, right? All those slick marketing videos omit that part.
- petra 5y agoYes helicopters aren't flying cars. But if a machine automates 90% of a process, like a dishwasher, why shouldn't it be considered like a robot, say a 90% robot? Practically it does have the same effect.
- tomp 5y agoA dishwasher is to a robot what a calculator is to a computer.
- generalizations 5y agoWhich means that a robot is something that has a property similar to the property of 'turing completeness' in computers.
- rhizome 5y agoBy that token, how well can a Boston Dynamics dogbot clean your dishes?
- ALittleLight 5y agoDo you think of a washing machine or a dryer as a robot too?
- petra 5y agoI think of them as machines that automated a certain task. So a robot substitute.
- q-big 5y ago> When people think flying cars, they don't think of something without wheels that can only land in certain spots that requires years of training to operate that is significantly expensive to be outside of the reach of 99%. You write down two points: 1. regulation 2. cost "Regulation" is not an engineering problem, but a hard and deeply political one. For "cost": When a lot of regulation comes down, the possible market size increases by a lot and it begins to make economic sense to invest lots of engineering ressources into cutting costs down by a lot (I do believe this is possible). Then helicopters will even perhaps transform into something that is much more akin to flying cars.