I've invested in rideshare companies with the assumption that humans will still largely be behind the wheel in 10 years.
(Because nobody's going back to taxis; rideshare is more backward compatible than public transit buildout; it's harder than you think to start a new rideshare company, etc. Also once something becomes popular, people underestimate how long it sticks. Similar to somebody predicting on the 2010 thread that Facebook would be gone by now.)
Side note: I've made bearish predictions about self-driving on HN for at least 2-3 years if you check my comment history. I'm don't want to be negative, just realistic. I'm bullish on the software industry in general and video in particular.
Yours (that autonomous vehicles won’t have an impact on the average person) is way more likely to hold than “there will be no L4/L5 autonomous vehicles anywhere”. I wanted the free money :).
Would you still do your bet with your “average” restricted to the US? What about major US cities? (By the end of your comment, it seemed you were at “average person in the whole world”, including developing, such that nobody should take your bet within a 10-year timeframe).
I think the biggest risks are regulatory and weather conditions. For the first: will NYC really allow AVs in time for 2030 to have any serious adoption? That looks questionable currently. As for weather conditions, you didn’t explicitly state it, but an autonomous system that only works 50% of the year means people need their current mobility and the AV option, leading to high cost.
The Bay Area and Los Angeles only have rain though, so it’s not too hard to imagine a world where AVs can operate in big California cities successfully, most of the year. I’d make that bet: Californians will have driverless cars with material impact (but perhaps not car replacement for the masses) for the median person in the major metro areas by Jan 1, 2030.
It doesn't sound like our opinions are that far off. Even in the last year it seems like the media and public have adjusted their expectations.
I live in SF and worked at Google so I've been hearing all about self-driving since 2009 (and I remember when co-workers went to the DARPA competitions in 2006).
Look at the top comment on this article from February 2018:
One thing’s for sure: We’re at a critical inflection point with this technology, so the shift is going to happen a lot faster than we think
Here's my comment which I think should have been totally uncontroversial since I simply quoted three people who are very close to the problem: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16353541
However I got pushback on that comment, and also when I said similar things in person to people even further away from the problem than I am. I remember a summer 2018 conversation where an engineer was poking fun at the tech-unsophisticated for doubting that self-driving is possible.
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Take a look at this 2013 nytimes article, which might have been the height of it:
That city of the future could have narrower streets because parking spots would no longer be necessary. And the air would be cleaner because people would drive less.
I would definitely take a bet against changes in city layout or the the air being cleaner in 2030 because of self-driving. (Both of them will improve in many places for other reasons though.)
I would also take a bet against self-driving impacting your average senior citizen or disabled person, which has been in the marketing of at least a few self-driving companies.
“I could sleep in my driverless car, or have an exercise bike in the back of the car to work out on the way to work,” he said. “My time spent in my car will essentially be very different.”
note: the article does present both sides: I'm picking a few people's opinions. But I heard a lot of that in person over the last 10 years.
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So really I'm not predicting anything controversial... it looks like the hype has already died down. I'm more interested in my other predictions on this thread.
But I also won't rule out the possibility of a "black swan": if there's a big innovation in self-driving, it probably won't come from Waymo, Tesla, or any incumbent.
Despite that I still think rideshare is valuable and there's no going back. I think Uber and Lyft will raise their prices significantly and people will take them anyway.
True L5 have zero chance of becoming a reality universally in the next several years. I drive a Tesla and continually see edge cases that I have no idea how autopilot should handle. For example, going to ski today at Squaw, they create these temporary lanes with cones, but ask you to ignore the actual lane markings. Further, there is a roundabout in SF that has a mix of Muni, cars, bikes, scooters, pedestrians, regulated by a stop sign. I find it impossible to navigate as a human driver. Not sure how and AI can ever navigate this
