Re:Uber's Loss Exceeds $800M in Q3 on $1.7B in Net Revenue
by kaosjester on Tuesday December 20, 2016 @08:51AM
(#13219706)
This isn't about marketing. Uber is literally pushing toward this. They hired most of CMU's National Robotics Engineering Center! They're making this push, and it's either that or bust for them.
Self-driving trucks and, even more so, cars, are by any reasonable measure decades away. There are technical challenges that we have no answer for. Like all technical challenges, they can probably be overcome, but no one knows when or how, and what hardware advancements are necessary. That's not even getting into the regulatory hurdles.
Put out a demo proof-of-concept and people think that the product is ready. It's like those 'life-like' Japanese robots that have some people thinking that we are almost ready to replicate humans, just because they put a pretty silicone skin on top of a simple mechanical contraption.