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It'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 ne

by Alupis 3y ago

It'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 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. 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 ago
    The 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 ago
      He also tried (is trying?) rockets.
      - __d 3y ago
        Tried, (more or less) failed, and gave up (because it was costing too much, basically). Search for "Armadillo Aerospace".
    - paulproteus 3y ago
      Personally 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 ago
        With 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 ago
        He 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.
      - Philpax 3y ago
        While I mostly agree that the hardware and UX challenges are mostly out of his domain, > It requires engineers to ship high FPS and low lag to prevent nausea to a degree unheard of for PC gaming. This is very much Carmack's speciality, and why his focus was on making mobile VR happen [0]. There are very few people who can outperform him at that, and most of them worked for Oculus :-) [0]: https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/q-a-carmack-reveals-the-challenges-of-mobile-vr-game-development https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/q-a-carmack-reveals-the... (this predates the Quest, but it should give you an idea of the problems he was tackling)
  - manmal 3y ago
    He 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 ago
      The 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 ago
        I 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 ago
    No one who correctly estimates the difficulty of writhing a game engine would ever start. Some things require optimism.
canes123456 3y ago
I 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 ago
  Waymo'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 ago
    Why 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 ago
      The 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 ago
        Destroyed 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.

by Alupis 3y ago

bombcar 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. 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 ago
  The 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 ago
    He also tried (is trying?) rockets.
    - __d 3y ago
      Tried, (more or less) failed, and gave up (because it was costing too much, basically). Search for "Armadillo Aerospace".
  - paulproteus 3y ago
    Personally 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 ago
      With 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 ago
        He 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.
    - Philpax 3y ago
      While I mostly agree that the hardware and UX challenges are mostly out of his domain, > It requires engineers to ship high FPS and low lag to prevent nausea to a degree unheard of for PC gaming. This is very much Carmack's speciality, and why his focus was on making mobile VR happen [0]. There are very few people who can outperform him at that, and most of them worked for Oculus :-) [0]: https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/q-a-carmack-reveals-the-challenges-of-mobile-vr-game-development https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/q-a-carmack-reveals-the... (this predates the Quest, but it should give you an idea of the problems he was tackling)
- manmal 3y ago
  He 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 ago
    The 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 ago
      I 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 ago
  No one who correctly estimates the difficulty of writhing a game engine would ever start. Some things require optimism.

canes123456 3y ago

I 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 ago
Waymo'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 ago
  Why 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 ago
    The 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 ago
      Destroyed 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.