[rck]

You are underestimating the hype around self-driving. A quick search gives this from 2018:

https://stanfordmag.org/contents/in-two-years-there-could-be...

The open (about the bet) is actually pretty reasonable, but some of the predictions listed include: passenger vehicles on American roads will drop from 247 million in 2020 to 44 million in 2030. People really did believe that self-driving was "basically solved" and "about to be ubiquitous." The predictions were specific and falsifiable and in retrospect absurd.

[jjk166]

I meant serious predictions. A surprisingly large percentage of people claim the Earth is flat, of course there's going to be baseless claims that the very nature of transportation is about to completely change overnight. But the people actually familiar with the subject were making dramatically more conservative and I would say reasonable predictions.