So, full disclosure, Jeff Bezos owns my paper. I have no inside information about the Zoox acquisition; this is just the stuff I've been thinking about with self-driving cars. (1/?)
To me the core problem with self-driving cars has always been a sort of uncanny valley--call it the Valley of Boredom. That's the point at which the car is good enough to drive you most of the time, but still needs you behind the wheel, and attentive, for the corner cases (2/?)
The problem is that this is, amazingly, more boring than just driving. Your attention is not required for anything at the moment, but you must remain alert at all times in case it might be. (3/?)
You're basically standing watch in your car. There's a reason armies have problems with sentries falling asleep. (4/?)
Lane assist, etc are commercially viable, but are not self-driving. A totally self-driving car with no steering wheel is commercially viable. In between--well, maybe it's commercially viable, but only because your drivers are going to take stupid risks. (5/?)
There are basically two ways you can inch up to truly Level 5 all-the-way automation. One, you start with features, and add more and more of them until you achieve true enlightenment. Or you start slow, and make it faster and faster. (6/?)
THe latter approach is, IMHO, the better approach, because it avoids the Valley of Boredom; you just don't let the vehicle go fast enough to kill people until you've worked the bugs out.
Problem is, who wants an expensive vehicle that goes 20 mph? (7/?)
Problem is, who wants an expensive vehicle that goes 20 mph? (7/?)
And, just spitballing here, but maybe the best customer for that slow, safe vehicle is a company that isn't moving people, who get impatient, but packages, which don't really care if it takes a while to get there. (8/?)
Any way, without wanting to suck up to my ultimate boss--who will never read this tweet thread--and with absolutely no inside information, this acquisition makes a lot of sense within the framework I've been using to think about self-driving cars. Happy Friday. (9/9)
