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Hard disk drives were the size of washing machines. I don't see how they will ever be practical!
by JimTheMan 4mo ago
Hard disk drives were the size of washing machines. I don't see how they will ever be practical!
- bitpush 4mo ago[flagged]
- jimbo808 4mo agoNot a valid analogy. At all.
- jimbo808 4mo agoNot comparable at all. Autonomous driving isn't obviously a viable business. It's not because computer programs can't drive well, it's because the and workforce infrastructure required to maintain and operate the expensive fleet may be less efficient than a human maintaining their own vehicle.
- beering 4mo agoIsn’t the implication there that Uber works because the drivers shoulder more costs and make less money, but Waymo won’t work because they have to shoulder all the costs?
- jimbo808 4mo agoI'm implying that drivers are more efficient at cleaning and maintaining, refueling, storing, repairing, and replacing their cars they own than the complex systems of personnel maintaining a much more expensive fleet of cars they don't own or give a shit about.
- wasmitnetzen 4mo agoAre you also implying that people who maintain vehicles for a living do a worse job at it than the owners doing it themselves? I would say the opposite is true. Plenty of companies around the world have well-maintained fleets of vehicles. Trucking businesses, bus companies, train companies, even some taxi companies with salaried drivers, ...
- jimbo808 4mo agoNo, I'm implying that people who maintain their own cars do it more efficiently. The simple stuff like cleaning has to be done by someone. It's not about doing a "worse job," it's about doing a more expensive job. Waymo is replacing human drivers with a capital-intensive fleet business, a substantially more expensive vehicle, and still a large number of remote assistance staff, fleet operators, safety engineers, incident response, operations staff, etc. But I'm not saying they can't beat a human driver, I'm just saying it hasn't been proven that they will. It may only be that the highest demand markets will provide a sufficient enough utilization to make it economically viable.
- spaceman_2020 4mo agoYou also have to be some completely isolated sociopath to not see the very obvious political and economic risks if this does indeed become successful No amount of lobbying will help you win against a million drivers suddenly out of work
- qsera 4mo agoSome technologies scale, some don't, at all. Your point is moot.
- YeGoblynQueenne 4mo agoWell, washing machines were once the size of washing machines; and they still are.