(THREAD)

1. There's been a lot of news lately about people in the Autonomous Vehicle industry realizing the problem they're trying to solve is much trickier than they initially hoped.

I think there’s a good analogy in a similar technology: self-checkouts.

2. Self-checkouts have been around a while. Companies have been working on them since 1984, and they’ve been in stores around the country for nearly two decades. As you well know if you’ve used one, they also still kinda suck.

3. This is not for a lack of financial incentives! A company that could figure the technology out would be able to replace billions a year in labor. Even a marginal improvement on the tech would be incredibly valuable as current systems feature staggering losses to shoplifters

4. It’s not as if “scanning items at a checkout” is an especially daunting task. It’s considered unskilled labor. Teenagers do it.

5. Turns out that making an automated system that’s 95% as good as a human is relatively easy and one that’s 100% as good as a human is very hard. I think it’s becoming clear that autonomous vehicles are going to turn out like this