9 ms·
I once again am reminded of this bet: https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-2030-self-driving-car-bet/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-2030-self-driving-car-bet/
by kogus 3y ago
I once again am reminded of this bet:
https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-2030-self-driving-car-bet/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-2030-self-driving-car-bet/
- Alupis 3y agoIt's really interesting to see Carmack take such risky positions, such as betting FSD Level 5 by 2030 along with his all-in bet on VR. The VR thing didn't go nearly as well as he had hoped... and I suspect, like VR, the FSD thing will also not come to fruition due to it's grossly underestimated difficulty.
- bombcar 3y agoCarmack is not a poor man, so a $10k bet or two (for charity, mind you) is more of a friendly wager than a make/break gamble. And he's clearly been optimistic most his life, and it's paid off a number of times. And self-driving has progressed further and faster than I have thought it would, though I don't think we'll get Level 5 by 2030.
- Alupis 3y ago> Carmack is not a poor man, so a $10k bet or two (for charity, mind you) is more of a friendly wager than a make/break gamble. The point was he seems to consistently grossly underestimate the difficulty of problems outside of his domain expertise.
- ephemeral-life 3y agoThe two examples were self driving and VR. > The point was he seems to consistently grossly underestimate the difficulty of problems outside of his domain expertise. Carmack made 3d games and game engines. I don't think VR was outside his domain of expertise. And for the self driving one, that bet is still on
- bombcar 3y agoHe also tried (is trying?) rockets.
- __d 3y agoTried, (more or less) failed, and gave up (because it was costing too much, basically). Search for "Armadillo Aerospace".
- paulproteus 3y agoPersonally I think VR is outside the domain of expertise of 3D games and game engines. To think that VR is within that domain is exactly the error -- VR as an overall product requires different consumer behavior than buying a game for a PC you already have. It requires buying a new kind of device or buying into a whole new form of interaction. It requires remembering to use that device and think about what games you have for it. It requires engineers to ship high FPS and low lag to prevent nausea to a degree unheard of for PC gaming. Facebook's VR plan seems to hinge on being "even more ubiquitous than mobile" <https://officechai.com/learn/mark-zuckerbergs-email-explaining-facebooks-vr-strategy/ https://officechai.com/learn/mark-zuckerbergs-email-explaini...>, which is a level of constant use that 3D games don't really have. I am not a VR or 3D game expert, but even I can list other key differences. I bet you can too if you try. I think those are reasons to think VR is not really the same domain. I am curious what you think.
- emmo 3y agoWith the amount of time he's put into VR over the last decade I think it's fair to say he's as much an expert as anyone else at this point.
- Alupis 3y agoHe became expert in the domain enough to decide to walk away... He's now working on a startup in the AGI field, which will also probably go nowhere for him. He gets to work on things that excite him - what a place to be in life. We can all envy that - but he's not very good at gauging problems and consistently underestimates their difficulty/time-to-market.
- manmal 3y agoHe actually wrote the Netflix VR app for Oculus, and wrote a really detailed post on it: https://netflixtechblog.com/john-carmack-on-developing-the-netflix-app-for-oculus-2c8170aaef00 https://netflixtechblog.com/john-carmack-on-developing-the-n... VR is not _at all_ outside his domain expertise.
- Alupis 3y agoThe issue with VR is that it almost entirely doesn't require his type of expertise for it to succeed. It's almost entirely a hardware problem, in terms of cost, wearability/usability, quality, along with the other issues like nausea etc. None of which Carmack's vast expertise lends itself towards. Writing an app for Netflix isn't exactly using his skills. We see this often with engineering types, many of us included. Vastly underestimating difficulty of challenging problems and naively believe they're simple to solve.
- enragedcacti 3y agoI would argue its mostly a hardware problem because lots of engineers, including Carmack, have already explored and solved a ton of the hard software problems e.g. https://web.archive.org/web/20140719085135/http://altdev.co/2013/02/22/latency-mitigation-strategies/ https://web.archive.org/web/20140719085135/http://altdev.co/...
- ZiiS 3y agoNo one who correctly estimates the difficulty of writhing a game engine would ever start. Some things require optimism.
- canes123456 3y agoI am a self driving skeptic but seems like a good bet for Carmack. I would expect Waymo to open up to consumers before 2030 in SF, even if more expensive and take way longer than a normal car. It could be little more than a tech demo and he would still win the bet.
- fragmede 3y agoWaymo's already open in SF and Phoenix, with LA and San Antonio to come, and it's only 2024. There's a wait-list you have to join, but anyone can download the app and get in line.
- aantix 3y agoWhy is Waymo so slow to roll out? Pick an optimal path for each metro, only operate on good weather days, roll out nationally.
- dzdt 3y agoThe major companies that have tried to go faster than Waymo have been destroyed by safety incidents (Uber, Cruise). Waymo's caution may be well-warrented.
- aantix 3y agoDestroyed seems a bit harsh. Tesla is moving forward. FSD12 appears to be a major advancement. https://twitter.com/WholeMarsBlog/status/1750448446790922634 https://twitter.com/WholeMarsBlog/status/1750448446790922634
- nemothekid 3y ago>Why is Waymo so slow to roll out? Ignoring the safety path, this other issue just scale. Manufacturing the cars would be a big problem. Getting a ton of them on the road is another. I wonder if all those sensors that the car uses could ramp up to a national level in a year. I've been in the Waymo beta for a couple months now. At peak times, it's more expensive and slower than an Uber simply because there aren't enough cars on the road.
- xnx 3y agoWhat does "everywhere in all conditions" mean for level 5? Across a flooded road? Through 8" of snow? Up "The Chute" in Sand Hollow?
- xattt 3y agoStandard roads are probably the intent. Being pedantic is just moving goalposts.
- wredue 3y agoThe problem is that freezing rain caused Portland to come to a standstill, but in Canada, that’s just an annoying day with elevated rates of accidents. In Texas, a light breeze takes out the entire state, whereas in Canada, most of our workforce is expected to at try to continue working after a 20 inch snow dump the night before. I hope you can see how there’s reason to being pedantic. If level 5 is all conditions human drivers do regularly for day to day activities, 2030 is an idiotic bet and anyone not living in a bubble could see that.
- nonameiguess 3y agoDid you typo "light freeze?" Texas does terribly with ice but it is regularly windy as hell here, among the windiest of all US states. Even when a tornado tore up three miles of North Dallas a few years ago, it didn't take out even the local traffic, let alone the whole state.
- rob74 3y agoThere's an additional aspect however: on days with e.g. freezing rain, human drivers might risk it, but companies like Waymo will probably decide to play it safe and not let their taxis run, because they know how much bad publicity an accident would be...
- crazygringo 3y agoA lot of that doesn't have anything to do with cars or drivers, but is rather about city infrastructure. Does the city own a fleet of snowplows? Does it keep massive stores of road salt available? Do schools and offices even have heating systems at all? On the other hand, driving carefully on snow and ice is a skill in itself that has to be learned. And in snowy places I do know people who simply don't drive in some conditions because they're well aware they don't have those skills, even growing up there -- while others enjoy the challenge. So that part is a fair question of which humans we're talking about when we talk about human-level driving skill.
- llsf 3y agoDo we know where officially Waymo is on the SAE J3016 scale ? I used Waymo in San Francisco, and to my not-expert eye, it did perform very well already.
- ralph84 3y agoWaymo is level 4. SAE calls out “local driverless taxi” as an example of level 4. https://www.sae.org/blog/sae-j3016-update https://www.sae.org/blog/sae-j3016-update
- paxys 3y ago"Against" is a pretty clear winner at this point. The chances of a level 5 self driving car being available for purchase in the next six years are ~0.
- tobinfricke 3y agoIt doesn't say "available for purchase." It says "will be commercially available for passenger use in major cities." Waymo is already there, in at least 2 cities but not all weather conditions. Expanding to 10 cities and all weather conditions in the next 6 years sounds more than plausible. I had sided with Atwood (skeptic) but now it seems like Carmack "has already won".
- paxys 3y agoWaymo is level 3 at best. It is active in 1 flat city right now (and partially in another), and needs frequent interruption from remote drivers to get it out of hairy situations. You really think it will be fully rolled out in the 10 most populous cities in America in the next 6 years? You really think it'll work without any human interaction (local or remote)? This thing won't last 5 minutes in NYC or Philadelphia .
- triceratops 3y agoSF is a flat city?
- adastra22 3y ago
- wredue 3y agoJohn Carmack pandering to buzzword communities to try to stay relevant? Yeah. That sounds right.
- spankalee 3y ago"For" is a pretty clear winner at this point. Waymo is already at level 4 at least on surface streets, and they claim 99.4% uptime in rain, high winds, and thunderstorms during last winter. [1] They're testing highway service in Phoenix now. There might be a debate about the word "all" for the distinction between levels 4 and 5, but Waymo has six years to erase that doubt. [1]: https://waymo.com/blog/2023/08/the-waymo-drivers-rapid-learning-curve/#:~:text=Some%20of%20our%20key%20areas,a%20range%20of%20weather%20conditions https://waymo.com/blog/2023/08/the-waymo-drivers-rapid-learn....
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y agoWaymo is not going to be working everywhere in the US in all conditions by 2030 (and it doesn't need to, either). AFAIK, that's what L5 means.
- spankalee 3y agoThe bet is to be available is one of the top 10 US cities.
- huytersd 3y agoIt will be in major cities and that’s what the bet is.
- oatmeal1 3y agoThe bet requires the cars to be SAE level 5 autonomous. You wouldn't notice the difference as a passenger between level 4 used in appropriate conditions, and level 5 car. But the bet does require the car to be level 5 nonetheless.
- snowwrestler 3y agoIs anyone at Level 5, though? At all? In even a prototype?
- huytersd 3y ago
- kevinqi 3y ago"No" seems easy to say right now, but technology is accelerating at a breakneck pace. If AGI can happen within a decade, I reckon 2030 self driving is not a crazy bet at all.