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by allendoerfer 2299 days ago
I am bookmarking this comment for the time after self-driving cars have become universally available.
2 comments

Just remember to hold off on the gloating until after the self-driving cars stop occasionally driving into trees.
given the longevity of webservices online I bet HN is gone before that day happens
HN was founded in 2007, so per the Lindy Effect we should bet on it being around until 2033.

I don't know what your over-under on self-driving cars being prevalent is, so I don't know if this supports your point or not.

Looking at the current infrastructure and the current investment in said infrastructure. I think it’s a safe bet to go out 30 years or more before self driving cars are the norm.

In cities sure. Rural areas not happening. Add the fact people like to drive to Mexico Canada and Alaska I’d call it a non starter.

Example. I have a place where the road on google maps and the place people drive vary because rural Arizona uses washes as roads. Cars driven by humans get stuck.

A lot hinges on whether one considers level 4 or level 5 to be "self-driving".

I wouldn't want to own a car without a steering wheel, sometimes you have to do weird stuff like park on a specific patch of grass at a rural wedding and it's going to be easier to do that myself than try and convince a robot.

But a car that can a) handle 'most' driving for some value of 'most' and can b) safely hand over or come to a stop under basically all circumstances including a sleeping driver? That's actually a much simpler task and it's a very useful vehicle. I would want one of those even if I lived somewhere where road conditions were such that I had to steer it myself on a daily basis.

Like in Arizona, once you got to paved road you could enter an address in Phoenix and kick back in actual safety, without having to worry about taking over at a moment's notice. I think that's achievable in 10-20 years, and it could be less.