161–170 of 198 posts
Why is every rich asshole obsessed with “X”? Disgraced Uber CEO/founde (“TK” — within his inner circle, douche alert lol) with inserting X into their products Twitter randomly renamed to “X” by Elon Tesla car with X Google has some X product, probably. I think their R&D dept is just named “X” Apple had a brief “X” and “XS” phase with their iPhones (instead of just using 10 or 10S)
Also, the fine article is about Google X.
X by Google, X by Twitter, X by X. Terrible branding on all sides and I am so not interested in any of this bullshit.
Scrolling down, this looks like Google's X.
There are resources available. https://www.healthline.com/health/suicide-and-suicidal-behav...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can't speak to the other two, but it's laughable to suggest in 2023 Waymo has "landed" - where is the contribution to Google's bottom line? Where can I buy or use Waymo tech outside of some very restricted demo neighborhoods? What is the likelihood this changes in the next few years? I'd be far more prepared to argue Waymo is presently another poster child for a failing Google x project.
> outside of some very restricted demo neighborhoods Nearly 200 square miles of the greater Phoenix metro. If Waymo services your home address -- and it services a lot of residential area -- then you can probably get anywhere you'd want to go around Phoenix in a driverless taxi. > What is the likelihood this changes in the next few years? I have no insider info, but I'd expect SF and LA County to roll out in the next…
Don't know why you are saying sorry to me either. They are happening of course, but to say its "landed" at Waymo is hilarious to me.
> Nearly 200 square miles of the greater Phoenix metro.
Precisely - highly restricted demo neighborhoods. This USA is a massive country. You've also conveniently skipped addressing the current lack of any profit for Google what-so-ever too - a core component of most people's definition of a new line of business being a success. You can't even point to meaningful user growth given the tiny percentage of the country it operates in.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hard to argue Waymo hasn't gone anywhere, given their public pilots. The other one I know of is Wing partnering with Doordash in AUS: https://help.doordash.com/consumers/s/article/Drone-Delivery...
I'd say its hard to argue that Waymo HAS gone anywhere. Can I buy a waymo? Can I rent a waymo taxi to take me to the airport?
Everyone is hating on "X" right now because of the bloviated way tech companies talk about "changing the world". I'm always pessimistic about things like this too, but I do have a soft spot in my heart for this stuff. Why?, because it allows some engineers to work on cool stuff. Will it pan out, probably not, but I'm not going to cry if Google blows through a few million bucks. They won't even notice it. Better that…
How long do these “moonshots” have until they are considered failures? It seems like an anti pattern that some huge, futzy organization launches a “moonshot” to explain why they burn money on something without needing a return because it’s a “moonshot.” JFK gave his “to the moon” speech in 1962, targeting 1970 [0]. And the USG did it. So 8 years was the first one. It cost a ton of money and was successful and had mas…
Which is why the historic examples of moonshots didn't actually arise from government fiat, but from scientists. The Manhattan Project famously started from a letter, signed by multiple prominent physicists including Einstein, warning the US government that the invention of an atomic bomb was imminent enough that they feared Germany would accomplish it first. The moon landing was a little more complicated, but for the entire 20th century, rocket scientists understood it was possible to explore space and did everything they could to try and convince various governments to fund their research[1]; the imminent achievability of a moon landing by 1960 fueled fears in the US government that the Soviets might beat them there.
So who are the cancer researchers promising that any sort of "moonshot" breakthrough is imminent? Let me know if there is one, but the cancer moonshot idea seems to have originated in politics, and once politicians start promising "cancer moonshots"--even if no such thing is likely to be achievable--it's not likely cancer researchers are going to complain or refuse the new source of potential funding.
Unlike the government, Google at least has or had the potential to be the type of organization that actually listened to the relevant technical experts instead of being dictated by the whims of random executives receiving revelations from the Good Idea Fairy. But I agree with you that it doesn't seem like they've delivered.
Finally, I think even calling these projects "moonshots" sets them up for failure in a certain way. If you said "we can and will land on the Moon" in 1962, people will be impressed. If you say "we're going to achieve a 'cancer moonshot'", what does that mean? Does that mean you're going to cure cancer? No, because if you were going to cure cancer, you'd say "we can and will cure cancer". Except (as far as I know) that would be a lie, so instead they say "cancer moonshot", which doesn't mean anything. Any goal that's ambitious enough to be called a "moonshot" is a goal that you can just say out loud and it will impress people a lot more than calling it a "moonshot".
[1] Yes, this is my way of glossing over the V-2; I don't morally endorse Von Braun's work during the war and this is entirely beside the point I'm making here.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> outside of some very restricted demo neighborhoods Nearly 200 square miles of the greater Phoenix metro. If Waymo services your home address -- and it services a lot of residential area -- then you can probably get anywhere you'd want to go around Phoenix in a driverless taxi. > What is the likelihood this changes in the next few years? I have no insider info, but I'd expect SF and LA County to roll out in the next…
> Sorry driverless cars aren't happening fast enough for you, but they are happening. Don't know why you are saying sorry to me either. They are happening of course, but to say its "landed" at Waymo is hilarious to me. > Nearly 200 square miles of the greater Phoenix metro. Precisely - highly restricted demo neighborhoods. This USA is a massive country. You've also conveniently skipped addressing the current lack of…
1. IDK why anyone would spend the money to do driverless everywhere in the USA. You can get to 30% of the population and by far the most profitable taxi markets by going one metro at a time. Even just the major metros in the sunbelt would print insane amounts of money.
2. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the time to go from one metro to N metros in not N*(lifetime of waymo). Ie, the hard part is done. The product has made it to market, at least in the sunbelt, and the poo-poo attitude about being able to go anywhere in the Phoenix metro without a driver is a pretty amazing dismissal.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Sorry driverless cars aren't happening fast enough for you, but they are happening. Don't know why you are saying sorry to me either. They are happening of course, but to say its "landed" at Waymo is hilarious to me. > Nearly 200 square miles of the greater Phoenix metro. Precisely - highly restricted demo neighborhoods. This USA is a massive country. You've also conveniently skipped addressing the current lack of…
> Precisely - highly restricted demo neighborhoods. This USA is a massive country. 1. IDK why anyone would spend the money to do driverless everywhere in the USA. You can get to 30% of the population and by far the most profitable taxi markets by going one metro at a time. Even just the major metros in the sunbelt would print insane amounts of money. 2. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the time to go f…
When this actually happens, then we can discuss Waymo's "landing". This is all hypothetical today.
It's not about traversing the whole USA - its about serving more than a handful of customers in demo areas, relatively speaking. Waymo has never done this to date.
I'm not disputing Waymo could go somewhere - it might! It hasn't so far.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Brain is everything you know of today in GenAI space, and many more internally used products and technologies.
>Brain is everything you know of today in GenAI space I know ChatGPT, Midjourney, StableDiffusion, Adobe Firefly, And GitHub Co-Pilot in this space. Where’s Google? Let me guess: Brain’s research led to those products? Even if that were the case, Google still failed to market and capitalize. Are they running an open research lab for the greater good? Or are they still interested in launching market-leading products?
This sort of "throwing optimist VC billions to radical approaches" could be a good approach to a number of hard problems that academy and classical corps couldn't solve, but Musk's recent views and radicalisation drives away any serious partner with an inch of foresight.