I'm that rare thing on Mastodon these days, a techno-optimist.
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I'm that rare thing on Mastodon these days, a techno-optimist. But even I can't quite see the point of self-driving cars.
Yes, they are (or soon will be) safer than human drivers, and I accept that they will somehow (how?) reduce road congestion.
But all of that sounds like marginal gains.
Why spend trillions just to slightly improve things?
What am I missing?
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I'm that rare thing on Mastodon these days, a techno-optimist. But even I can't quite see the point of self-driving cars.
Yes, they are (or soon will be) safer than human drivers, and I accept that they will somehow (how?) reduce road congestion.
But all of that sounds like marginal gains.
Why spend trillions just to slightly improve things?
What am I missing?
@davidnjoku Some clever tech geek told me a couple of years ago that a company like Google only were interested in self-driving cars so people would have more time to:
1) google stuff (= get more gold via Adwords) and
2) watch more videos on YT (= get more gold via people watching ads).I found this argument hillarious back then - but maybe it's true?
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@davidnjoku Some clever tech geek told me a couple of years ago that a company like Google only were interested in self-driving cars so people would have more time to:
1) google stuff (= get more gold via Adwords) and
2) watch more videos on YT (= get more gold via people watching ads).I found this argument hillarious back then - but maybe it's true?
@anport I remember that, back in the early days, this was the argument for everything Google did.
Maps? So you can search more.
Email? So you can search more.
Docs? See above.I don't know how much this works for cars, but I've got to admit that I didn't think it would work for email, and I was clearly wrong.
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@anport I remember that, back in the early days, this was the argument for everything Google did.
Maps? So you can search more.
Email? So you can search more.
Docs? See above.I don't know how much this works for cars, but I've got to admit that I didn't think it would work for email, and I was clearly wrong.
@davidnjoku watch me get in a Google self-driving car and just read a book by Abdulrazak Gurnah printed on paper. Who's laughing now Google, lol
