George Hotz runs Comma AI, a self driving car company.
Most people only care about money as they have no choice. Absent a cash-first system money has become a social construct. The valuation of a dollar is entirely ephemeral now.
I see that social reality becoming more realized and the existing social system around money collapsing due to generational churns attenuation of the social significance.
Tech bros are little more than disciples of a dogma being missionaries for their dogma. There are other dogmas.
The sooner the other techbros get the same realization the better.
But the market is so unbelievably messed up that this is not what happens in practise.
The work on self-driving cars would not be done if there were not a way to profit from it. If it isn’t expected to earn more than it costs, it wouldn’t be done.
Now maybe it’s all being done because of expectations of a monopoly (this is a free market consequence, right?), but …
And more substantial is that when someone shows something can be done, its orders of mangnitude easier for $ENGINEER at $CORP to get $CSUITEs attention to get a budget / justify the risk.
Your self driving car example is the best example of this. Since waymo and tesla got popular NVIDIA really started pushing their self driving cars for everyone tech.
https://youtu.be/EzAVW1VgzcI?si=gfnOJoaO9hfIFXX1
And NVIDIA isn't the only one.
I disagree. "Expected" is hiding a lot of the work there, and the reasons for that expectation could be rational or completely irrational.
Hypothetically "work on self-driving cars" would be done if some crazy psychic-trusting billionaire's psychic told him they would be profitable, even if all rational analysis said they'd be a bad business. A lot of major investments, especially in tech, and done based on hope or as a bet, not due to any real foresight.