Some idle thoughts as I've watched this play out: The successes have been stellar. Google mashing up a pile of disparate things into Google Maps has been game

Some idle thoughts as I've watched this play out: The successes have been stellar. Google mashing up a pile of disparate things into Google Maps has been game changing. I used nothing but Google Maps to navigate my way around rural Australia between 2017 and 2020 and it was nothing but awesome. I only got lost once in 60,000km and that was my own fault. The failures have been...weird. I don't know what Uber really is or wants to be but as a taxi replacement it's got very weird in Australia in my experience. I went back to Taxis. In the US when I used it, every single Uber driver was also driving for Lyft and who knows who else. I had one Uber/Lyft driver pick me up in San Francisco for my day of meetings in Silicon Valley and she said it would be cool if I needed a lift back we'd meet at a particular spot in 2 hours and book the ride home together but Uber absolutely refused to match us up even though we were literally standing next to each other in the car park. She gave up and I paid her cash instead. Their twin dreams of owning the taxi game and using the funds to leapfrog into self driving cars turned out to be a pack of stupidity (and possibly lies). None of the self driving mess has turned out very well, although props to George Hotz or whatever his name is for doing just as well as everybody else on a budget of $50 vs. the billions people have poured down that hole. People are unbelieveably chaotic on the road and I sincerely doubt any AI is ever going to compete. I think any sensible AI, once fed in all the parameters for collision avoidance and other driver behaviour would probably refuse to start the car, like most of us should when confronted with the utter stupidity/distractedness of your average commuter.