[nutjob2]

I think the corporate types are assuming that throwing money and engineers at the problem is going to "win" it, but I'm not sure it will. Google has plenty of both of those things and they seem to be stalling at the moment, or the very least they're not confident enough to go out and claim the market for themselves.

I think the engineers have been probably been wildly optimistic as usual, and the last 5% of car autonomy is going to take as much effort as the first 95%, or maybe double that.

[threeseed]

Not sure how many Data Scientists you know but I've worked with hundreds over the years and have never met a single one who was irrationally optimistic about the work they do. In fact generally it is the opposite.

But you know the sort of people who are wildly optimistic and prone to over-exaggeration. Executives like Musk.

[Hydraulix989]

Seems like those types are the ones fetishized here in the Valley (and end up getting showered with cash accordingly).

[dd36]

Musk succeeds.

[xiaolingxiao]

as another datapoint, I worked at GRASP lab and half of my classmates went Waymo, or some other self driving car company. They go there because of the calibur of co-workers, many of them do no believe self driving cars on residential roads is possible within the next 10 years. In fact, one of the robotics professors here (who is no stranger to PR hype) said: self driving cars with pedestrians on the roads is impossible

Most are optimistic about highway driving in California though.