Futurology Today

More and more it looks like the Western world's embrace of neoliberalism was a catastrophic mistake. Its guiding principle is that capital and the markets are always right, and governments/the people should have no say in what they do. After decades of this, manufacturing and industry have fled to where capital & the markets can get the cheapest labor, leaving most Western countries hollowed out and deindustrialized.

COVID exposed a fresh weakness in this model of organizing economies, but now there's yet another disadvantage coming to light. By making China the world's manufacturing HQ, it is handing it the crown of the planet's No 1 in technology.

By rapidly becoming the world's leading car maker, China is in gear to become the world's leading robotics nation. Add to that, it's also arguably already the world's leading AI nation.

Some people in Western countries see this in terms of wars and arms races, but maybe the solution is to look within at home and dump neoliberalism?

We're getting closer to making SeaQuest DSV a reality.

US Big Tech wants to eliminate the federal government administered by humans, and replace it with AI. Amid all the talk that has generated one aspect has gone relatively unreported. None of the AI they want to replace the humans with actually works.

AI is still plagued by widespread simple and basic errors in reasoning. Furthermore, there is no path to fixing this problem. Tinkering with training data has provided some improvements, but it has not fixed the fundamental problem. AI lacks the ability to independently reason.

'Move fast and break things' has always been a Silicon Valley mantra. It seems increasingly that is the way the basic functions of administering the US state will be run too.

What is more important on the path to AGI - scaling and more training data, or fundamental breakthroughs in AI software developed by humans?

Many people believe it is the former, though Deepseek itself arose from the latter.

If training data is to be significant then Tencent may have given itself a huge boost. WeChat is the biggest and most used app on the planet. The Google suite of products is the only thing comparable in western countries. However, Western countries are starting to split into AI walled gardens, so Google won't be able to take full advantage of all its users.

It may not matter. Some people believe scaling alone won't be enough to get to AGI. Some smart humans somewhere will need to figure out breakthroughs in AI software - and that could happen anywhere.

Although tariffs might slow things down, the ultimate destiny of the world's robotaxis is probably to be cheap, electric and made in China. This week, BYD the maker of the $9,500 Seagull hatchback said it will make Level 2 self-driving standard on all its cars, including it.

When cars this cheap are self-driving and taxis, it will mean there is little point for many people to own a car. Why, if the few hundred kms/miles you drive a month costs a fraction of car ownership?

Ryan Johnson, the developer of Culdesac, thinks this trend is already helping it, and will ripple out to change the way more and more people live in cities.

Current state of Waymo in Phoenix

• Now regularly seeing my social circle, male and female, looking to it first

• Parents now comfortable sending their kids to school and elsewhere. This is a major vibe shift. Early on, women solo riders were the loudest champions. But parents are overtaking that. Effusive praise e.g. “I have my freedom back!”

• Biggest impediment to growth is that they go slower. Which of course is because they don’t speed and don’t run red lights

• Perception that Waymo makes other drivers drive safer

• Now regularly seeing Waymo convoys

• First anecdote effect dissipating. When someone sees their first minor error from Waymo, it is jarring. But then a long time elapses until they see their second. And that builds intuition that it is rare, and points the finger at how much more common errors are from human drivers

• People are asking when they can order Waymo via either Lyft or Uber

• People seeing how fast the AI tools are improving is bringing the “Waymo right now is the worst it will ever be” conclusion

Phoenix is Waymo’s most mature market, now 8 years into public availability. It’s a big reason why we chose Phoenix (Tempe) for the first Culdesac.

The May 2023 launch of the Jaguar platform was a seminal moment in the history of AV Ridehail going mainstream. And AV Ridehail is going to drive the largest change to cities in decades.