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This is important to consider when judging Tesla's engineering capability, but not when judging Elon Musk's highly optimistic promises. Either Elon is aware of

This is important to consider when judging Tesla's engineering capability, but not when judging Elon Musk's highly optimistic promises. Either Elon is aware of the fact that FSD is really hard and he's lying repeatedly about being able to deliver it "later this year". Or he is not aware that FSD is as hard as you say and needs to "hit the books" and understand the problem better. I don't really see an "out" here after so many missed promises.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago
Software timelines are notoriously hard to forecast because you're essentially trying to predict how long it will take to do something nobody has done before. So you look at what's left to do and as long as you don't run into any unforeseen issues you say, looks like about six months from now. Sometimes you don't run into any unforeseen issues and it turns out to be about six months. Sometimes you do, and then it takes longer. So a year later you found an unexpected problem that delayed you by a year. Someone asks you how long you think it will take again, that issue delayed you by a year but that was a year ago, so you say, looks like about six months from now. Eventually the estimate will be true but nobody knows when because nobody knows how to make an accurate estimate. Because you have to know how hard it is to do in order to know how long it will take, which nobody knows until after somebody has actually done it.
- seadan83 3y ago
  Just reminded of the an old trope for estimates, either: - less than 3 months - 3 months - 6 months Anything less than 3 months - is an accurate estimate. Otherwise, 3 months is the amount of time it takes to do _anything_, right? If it's a really hard problem, then we say, okay, it's 6 months. At the end of the day, those 3 months and 6 months means "NFC", which goes back to the estimation technique that everything is either a "1", "TFB", or "NFC". 3 months = TFB, 6 months = NFC On a more serious point, we (as software engineers) generally feel we can solve almost any problem with 3 months worth of resources and effort. 3 to 6 months sometimes (IMO) can be a bit of the scariest estimate to give or receive. For reference & more on NFC/TFB/1 estimation technique: https://pm.stackexchange.com/questions/26218/how-to-implement-tfb-nfc-1-sprint-estimation-technique https://pm.stackexchange.com/questions/26218/how-to-implemen...
- Wytwwww 3y ago
  > Software timelines are notoriously hard to forecast Perhaps. Of course, we all know for a certainty that this had almost nothing to do with you're describing. The people how were actually designing the software knew that it won't happen in six months. I doubt Musk wasn't aware of that, so the only alternative that he was lying.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    > Of course, we all know for a certainty that this had almost nothing to do with you're describing. The people how were actually designing the software knew that it won't happen in six months. How do we know this? Waymo has had this "almost" working for years. In theory you could get from the status quo to actually working in a short period of time, if you're sufficiently smart or lucky and have the right resources. Or you could hit a wall for years. The things currently happening with LLMs and image generation were the sort of things many people said were many years away, if not impossible, but we got there by basically throwing a lot of compute at some clever but relatively simple ML algorithms. Nobody knows until you try. It's obvious that his estimates are optimistic, but optimism isn't inherently malicious.
    - Wytwwww 3y ago
      > How do we know this? Some life experience + common sense? > In theory you could get from the status quo to actually working in a short period of time, In theory we could build a rocket that would fly a person to the moon in 6 months. > if you're sufficiently smart If that's the case, you wouldn't be making such bold claims (or rather actually believing in them yourself) > LLMs and image generation were the sort of things many people said were many years away, Does that include the people who were actually working on them in OpenAI? > It's obvious that his estimates are optimistic, but optimism isn't inherently malicious. In some cases it's either malice or stupidity/delusion.
      - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
        > Some life experience + common sense? If you asked people with "life experience + common sense" if generative AI would soon be possible six months before it actually was, they'd have said no and been wrong. > In theory we could build a rocket that would fly a person to the moon in 6 months. Kennedy said it would be done by the end of the decade, people called him crazy, and then it happened. The people saying it couldn't be done were still saying it right up until the day it happened. > If that's the case, you wouldn't be making such bold claims (or rather actually believing in them yourself) I don't think he, or anyone, believes that it will definitely happen in six months. He's giving the optimistic end of the range, but everybody knows that. > Does that include the people who were actually working on them in OpenAI? Before they had them working internally? Yeah, it did. Nobody knew it would work until it actually worked.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago

Software timelines are notoriously hard to forecast because you're essentially trying to predict how long it will take to do something nobody has done before. So you look at what's left to do and as long as you don't run into any unforeseen issues you say, looks like about six months from now. Sometimes you don't run into any unforeseen issues and it turns out to be about six months. Sometimes you do, and then it takes longer. So a year later you found an unexpected problem that delayed you by a year. Someone asks you how long you think it will take again, that issue delayed you by a year but that was a year ago, so you say, looks like about six months from now. Eventually the estimate will be true but nobody knows when because nobody knows how to make an accurate estimate. Because you have to know how hard it is to do in order to know how long it will take, which nobody knows until after somebody has actually done it.

seadan83 3y ago
Just reminded of the an old trope for estimates, either: - less than 3 months - 3 months - 6 months Anything less than 3 months - is an accurate estimate. Otherwise, 3 months is the amount of time it takes to do _anything_, right? If it's a really hard problem, then we say, okay, it's 6 months. At the end of the day, those 3 months and 6 months means "NFC", which goes back to the estimation technique that everything is either a "1", "TFB", or "NFC". 3 months = TFB, 6 months = NFC On a more serious point, we (as software engineers) generally feel we can solve almost any problem with 3 months worth of resources and effort. 3 to 6 months sometimes (IMO) can be a bit of the scariest estimate to give or receive. For reference & more on NFC/TFB/1 estimation technique: https://pm.stackexchange.com/questions/26218/how-to-implement-tfb-nfc-1-sprint-estimation-technique https://pm.stackexchange.com/questions/26218/how-to-implemen...
Wytwwww 3y ago
> Software timelines are notoriously hard to forecast Perhaps. Of course, we all know for a certainty that this had almost nothing to do with you're describing. The people how were actually designing the software knew that it won't happen in six months. I doubt Musk wasn't aware of that, so the only alternative that he was lying.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  > Of course, we all know for a certainty that this had almost nothing to do with you're describing. The people how were actually designing the software knew that it won't happen in six months. How do we know this? Waymo has had this "almost" working for years. In theory you could get from the status quo to actually working in a short period of time, if you're sufficiently smart or lucky and have the right resources. Or you could hit a wall for years. The things currently happening with LLMs and image generation were the sort of things many people said were many years away, if not impossible, but we got there by basically throwing a lot of compute at some clever but relatively simple ML algorithms. Nobody knows until you try. It's obvious that his estimates are optimistic, but optimism isn't inherently malicious.
  - Wytwwww 3y ago
    > How do we know this? Some life experience + common sense? > In theory you could get from the status quo to actually working in a short period of time, In theory we could build a rocket that would fly a person to the moon in 6 months. > if you're sufficiently smart If that's the case, you wouldn't be making such bold claims (or rather actually believing in them yourself) > LLMs and image generation were the sort of things many people said were many years away, Does that include the people who were actually working on them in OpenAI? > It's obvious that his estimates are optimistic, but optimism isn't inherently malicious. In some cases it's either malice or stupidity/delusion.
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      > Some life experience + common sense? If you asked people with "life experience + common sense" if generative AI would soon be possible six months before it actually was, they'd have said no and been wrong. > In theory we could build a rocket that would fly a person to the moon in 6 months. Kennedy said it would be done by the end of the decade, people called him crazy, and then it happened. The people saying it couldn't be done were still saying it right up until the day it happened. > If that's the case, you wouldn't be making such bold claims (or rather actually believing in them yourself) I don't think he, or anyone, believes that it will definitely happen in six months. He's giving the optimistic end of the range, but everybody knows that. > Does that include the people who were actually working on them in OpenAI? Before they had them working internally? Yeah, it did. Nobody knew it would work until it actually worked.