Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Predictions Scorecard, 2025 January 01

rodneybrooks.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 190 posts

Re: Predictions Scorecard, 2025 January 01

#11

Post by sashank_1509 »

mvdtnz wrote: post #8
sashank_1509 wrote: post #6

Feels too self-congratulatory when he claims to be correct about self driving in the Waymo case. The bar he set is so broad and ambiguous, that probably anything Waymo did, would not qualify as self driving to him. So he think humans are intervening once every 1-2 miles to train the Waymo, we’re not even sure if that is true, I heard from friends that it was 100+ miles but let us say Waymo comes out and says it is 10…

Your objection to him claiming a win on self driving is that you think that we can still define cars as self driving even when humans are operating them? Ok I disagree. If humans are operating them then they simply are not self driving by any sensible definition.

Human interventions are some non zero number in current self driving cars and will likely be that way for a while. Does this mean self driving is a scam and in fact it is just a human driving, and that these are actually ADAS. Maybe in some pedantic sense, you are right but then your definition is not useful, since it lumps cruise control/ lane-keeping ADAS and Waymo’s in the same category. Waymo is genuinely, qualitatively a big improvement above any ADAS/ self driving system that we have seen. I suspect Rodney did not predict even Waymo’s to be possible, but gave himself enough leeway so that he can pedantically argue that Waymo’s are just ADAS and that his prediction was right.

Re: Predictions Scorecard, 2025 January 01

#12

Post by vikrantrathore »

For me this predictions are kind of being aware of how progress can happen based on history, but this will not lead to any breakthrough. I am not in the camp of being skeptic so I still like the hype cycle, they create an environment for people to break the boundaries and sometimes help untested ideas and things to be explored. This might not have happen if there is no hype cycle. I am in the camp of people who are positive as George Bernard Shaw in his 2 quotes:

  1. A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
  2. The reasonable person adapts themselves to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to themself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable person. (Changed man to person as I feel it should be gender neutral)
In hindsight when we look back, everything looks like we anticipated, so predictions are no different some pans out some doesn't. My feeling after reading prediction scorecard is that you need a right balance between risk averse (who are either doubtful or do not have faith things will happen quickly enough) and risk takers (one who is extremely positive) for anything good to happen. Both help humanity to move forward and are necessary part of nature.

It is possible AGI might replace humans in a short term and then new kind of work emerges and humans again find something different. There is always a disruption with new changes and some survive and some can't, even if nothing much happens its worth trying as said in quote 1.

Re: Predictions Scorecard, 2025 January 01

#13

Post by shlomo_z »

Animats wrote: post #10

> That being said, we are not on the verge of replacing and eliminating humans in either white collar jobs or blue collar jobs. Tell that to someone laid off when replaced by some "AI" system. > Waymo not autonomous enough It's not clear how often Waymo cars need remote attention, but it's not every 1-2 miles. Customers would notice the vehicle being stopped and stuck during the wait for customer service. There are m…

> Tell that to someone laid off when replaced by some "AI" system. What are some good examples? I am very skeptical of anyone losing their jobs to AI. People are getting laid off for various reasons: - Companies are replacing American tech jobs with foreigners - Many companies hired more devs than they need - companies hired many devs during the pandemic, and don't need them anymore

Some companies may claim they are replacing devs with AI. I take it with a grain of salt. I believe some devs were probably replaced by AI, but not a large amount.

I think there may be a lot more layoffs in the future, but AI will probably account for a very small fraction of those.

Re: Predictions Scorecard, 2025 January 01

#14

Post by laweijfmvo »

sashank_1509 wrote: post #6

Feels too self-congratulatory when he claims to be correct about self driving in the Waymo case. The bar he set is so broad and ambiguous, that probably anything Waymo did, would not qualify as self driving to him. So he think humans are intervening once every 1-2 miles to train the Waymo, we’re not even sure if that is true, I heard from friends that it was 100+ miles but let us say Waymo comes out and says it is 10…

Waymo is the best driver I’ve ridden with. Yes it has limited coverage. Maybe humans are intervening, but unless someone can prove that humans are intervening multiple times per ride, “self driving” is here, IMO, as of 2024.

Re: Predictions Scorecard, 2025 January 01

#15

Post by laweijfmvo »

_yb2s wrote: post #7

It seems to me that the redefined flying cars for extremely wealthy people did happen? eVTOLs are being sold/delivered to the general public. Certainly still pretty rare, as I've never seen one in real life. I'd love to have one but would probably hate a world where everyone has them. Not really wanting to have this argument a second time in a week (seriously- just look at my past comments instead of replying here as…

Kobe Bryant basically commuted by helicopter, when it was convenient. It may have even taken off and landed at his house, but probably not exactly at all of his destinations. Is a “flying car” fundamentally that much different?

Re: Predictions Scorecard, 2025 January 01

#16

Post by theLiminator »

shlomo_z wrote: post #13
Animats wrote: post #10

> That being said, we are not on the verge of replacing and eliminating humans in either white collar jobs or blue collar jobs. Tell that to someone laid off when replaced by some "AI" system. > Waymo not autonomous enough It's not clear how often Waymo cars need remote attention, but it's not every 1-2 miles. Customers would notice the vehicle being stopped and stuck during the wait for customer service. There are m…

> Tell that to someone laid off when replaced by some "AI" system. What are some good examples? I am very skeptical of anyone losing their jobs to AI. People are getting laid off for various reasons: - Companies are replacing American tech jobs with foreigners - Many companies hired more devs than they need - companies hired many devs during the pandemic, and don't need them anymore Some companies may claim they are…

I imagine there aren't really layoffs, but slowing/stopping of hiring as you get more productivity out of existing devs. I imagine in the future, lots of companies will just let their employee base slowly attrition away.

Re: Predictions Scorecard, 2025 January 01

#17

Post by brcmthrowaway »

Animats wrote: post #10

> That being said, we are not on the verge of replacing and eliminating humans in either white collar jobs or blue collar jobs. Tell that to someone laid off when replaced by some "AI" system. > Waymo not autonomous enough It's not clear how often Waymo cars need remote attention, but it's not every 1-2 miles. Customers would notice the vehicle being stopped and stuck during the wait for customer service. There are m…

What is the silver bullet for battery tech?

Re: Predictions Scorecard, 2025 January 01

#18

Post by Spivak »

mvdtnz wrote: post #8
sashank_1509 wrote: post #6

Feels too self-congratulatory when he claims to be correct about self driving in the Waymo case. The bar he set is so broad and ambiguous, that probably anything Waymo did, would not qualify as self driving to him. So he think humans are intervening once every 1-2 miles to train the Waymo, we’re not even sure if that is true, I heard from friends that it was 100+ miles but let us say Waymo comes out and says it is 10…

Your objection to him claiming a win on self driving is that you think that we can still define cars as self driving even when humans are operating them? Ok I disagree. If humans are operating them then they simply are not self driving by any sensible definition.

Yeah, I think semi-autonomous vehicles are a huge milestone and should be celebrated but the jump from semi-autonomous to fully-autonomous will, I think, feel noticeably different. It will be a moment future generations have trouble imagining a world where drunk or tired driving was ever even an issue.

Re: Predictions Scorecard, 2025 January 01

#19

Post by _yb2s »

laweijfmvo wrote: post #15
_yb2s wrote: post #7

It seems to me that the redefined flying cars for extremely wealthy people did happen? eVTOLs are being sold/delivered to the general public. Certainly still pretty rare, as I've never seen one in real life. I'd love to have one but would probably hate a world where everyone has them. Not really wanting to have this argument a second time in a week (seriously- just look at my past comments instead of replying here as…

Kobe Bryant basically commuted by helicopter, when it was convenient. It may have even taken off and landed at his house, but probably not exactly at all of his destinations. Is a “flying car” fundamentally that much different?

I think the difference is that a helicopter is extremely technical to fly requiring complex and expensive training, and the eVTOL is supposed to be extremely simple to fly. Also the eVTOL in principle is really cheap to make if you just consider the materials and construction costs- probably eventually much cheaper than a car.

I was curious so I looked up how much you can buy the cheapest new helicopters for, and they are cheaper than an eVTOL right now- the XE composite is $68k new, and things like that can be ~25k used. I'm shocked one can in principle own a working helicopter for less than the price of a 7 year old Toyota Camry.

Re: Predictions Scorecard, 2025 January 01

#20

Post by zzzeek »

what a weird writer, lots of interesting things to talk about but this very long essay continued to circle back to being author-self-obsessed with their own prowess and drawing out huge expositions and bullet lists on how well they are at predicting things. Call it self-referential-appeal-to-authority.
Post reply on HN