• tuhriel@infosec.pub
    561·
    5 months ago

    I’m happy to dunk on musk as much as the next guy, but that title is bull.

    Lightyears measure distance not time, how can they mess that up?

    • Dr. Bob@lemmy.caEnglish
      32·
      5 months ago

      Because he’s a long way away. Longer than miles away…maybe…light years?

    • Kichae@lemmy.caEnglish
      25·
      5 months ago

      Musk <-------------------------------- LYs -----------------------------------> Self-Driving car

      Any questions?

      • k_rol@lemmy.ca
        6·
        5 months ago

        Your point doesn’t help me because it shows that we can fold space-time to create a shortcut with warp technology. Reference.

      • 4dpuzzle@beehaw.orgEnglish
        3·
        5 months ago

        It’s extremely nuanced. ‘Light years ahead’ is correct since you are thinking about a race where one competitor is a long distance ahead of others. On the other hand, ‘light years away’ doesn’t make sense, since we think of achievements in terms of time needed, rather than distance.

        • ji17br@lemmy.ml
          7·
          5 months ago

          You’ve never heard the term miles ahead?

          Tommy is miles ahead of Timmy in math class.

          Clearly not referring to distance but it absolutely makes sense.

      • towerful
        4·
        5 months ago

        I think the headcanon is that the shortest distance is impressive.
        Either a different faster and harder route through “the kessel”. Or that 12 parsecs is the absolute minimum distance it can be done in, perfectly apexing every corner.

        • HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com
          4·
          5 months ago

          yeah honestly I know the answer even though I did the joke. the star wars mythical travel requires hyperspace navigation where objects still exist in it and the nav computer is basically plotting the smallest safe distance (or something like that). Basically all speed in hyperspace is the same its just about the route. Its basically explained in the original movie when han says (spoilers ahead /s):

          “Traveling through hyperspace ain’t like dusting crops, boy! Without precise calculations we could fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova and that’d end your trip real quick, wouldn’t it?”

        • t3rmit3@beehaw.org
          2·
          5 months ago

          Or it’s a roundabout way of saying he cheated: “I finished the marathon in 22 miles!” :D

    • Tolookah@discuss.tchncs.de
      4·
      5 months ago

      Maybe he needs 6.706e+8 miles more data

      Edit, more math: that’s 8.9 million hours of data at 75mph, or about 2 more hours of data per Tesla (at 75mph).

      I’m actually surprised that musk doesn’t talk about how many light years have been traveled.

      Edit: first number was wrong? My TI89 is upstairs, so I’m trusting search engines

    • sunzu@kbin.run
      2·
      5 months ago

      You have to read the title in context of millennial journalism title convention.

      It is tiring, you aint wrong but there is context on why it makes sense tho

  • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.techEnglish
    40·
    5 months ago

    so much money pumped into a pipe dream, when tech just isn’t there yet. It doesn’t matter how many AI models and image recognition systems you use, sometimes you just can’t plan for every case. Driving is an incredibly complex task, that to us humans makes sense and we can easily adjust to. Snow covering the lanes? Slow down, take it extremely cautiously, and find out where the road is.

    But we know what it really is all about - selling more cars. Even if the tech isn’t there the illusion that it’s just a few years away keeps people buying it. Modern AI is only fueling that techbro BS that it’s almost here.

    When really, trains. Trains are relatively (to cars) easy to automate and make run safely, can move way more people. I’m still extremely salty that Musk tried to derail California HSR with his stupid Boring company just to sell more Teslas.

    • Revv@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      13·
      5 months ago

      Aside from driving being an activity that, in my opinion, will require something approaching AGI, there are other issues to consider. Self driving cars will be completely unable to make difficult decisions reliably. How, for example, do they deal with a robbery where you just have someone stand in front of the car to immobilize it and then have the folks inside the car at your mercy? I have to imagine that either you’re producing pedestrian murder machines or serving up passengers on a silver platter.

      • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.techEnglish
        6·
        5 months ago

        exactly, I’m trying to think of all the crazy things I’ve encountered while driving, and the many many things that I’ve seen online. Remember the meteor in Russia about 10 years ago? How would a self driving car react to all of it’s sensors being so bright it can’t see anything? I’ve had children run into the street, things fly off of cars ahead of me, people driving in 2 lanes, just yesterday I was almost smashed by a gasoline tanker who didn’t see me.

        There’s so many one-off variables that you just can’t make a model for, there’s not enough data in the world for every case that it may come across.

        • averyminya@beehaw.org
          6·
          5 months ago

          My concept of self driving cars has always been external navigation from a grid.

          An individual car self driving is useless for all of these reasons mentioned. However, a self driving car that is controlled as part of a wider grid? Now we’re talking. You input your destination and relative to everything currently on the road you are moved. If a wider issue like a meteor comes in, the grid goes down and traffic stops safely. If someone tries to game the system by standing in front of a car, the grid has control of the other vehicles as well. Some other benefits could be redesigning the use of tires for fewer microplastics, and there would have to weigh out the difference of gas vs. electricity costs. Ideally, each vehicle is powered by the grid so no more gas stations, but electricity comes from somewhere, so unless we move towards renewables then it may not have less emissions.

          Obviously the drawback to this is the insane privacy imposition of the grid controlling where you go. The infrastructure would also be likely impossible as it would be the grid and the vehicles. But, if we were going to do it I feel like this would be on track towards the right way.

          Now that I’m grown, I feel like a more feasible version of this is this sort of grid for local busses, as well as trucking and long-distance travel (aka trains) and getting local towns and cities to focus more on walkability. This works towards solving the problem of getting fewer vehicles on the road while not limiting people’s freedom to travel. Unfortunately it’s the same problem of infrastructure and no one will invest in this.

    • Thevenin@beehaw.org
      13·
      5 months ago

      But we know what it really is all about - selling more cars.

      It isn’t even about selling more cars at this point, it’s about selling securities. Their market cap dwarfs their total sales. Their P/E ratio is 67.67x, meaning they could sell cars for 67 years and still not make as much money as their stocks are worth today.

      The real product is the rising stock price. The factories are just a front.

    • onlinepersonaEnglish
      63·
      5 months ago

      We could have global train network taking cargo and passengers from China all the way to Europe, but instead these people are focusing on the hardest feats possible. All because they read about it in a book and think it’s within arm’s reach. We could be living in unpolluted cities with free public transport and maybe even UBI. Instead we have to settle for this…

      Anti Commercial-AI license

    • Geobloke@lemm.ee
      1·
      5 months ago

      We’ve already automated trains. In Australia, the mines have trains travelling hundreds of kilometres with no pilot

  • Lime Buzz@beehaw.org
    10·
    5 months ago

    Despite the title not understanding what a lightyear actually means, good. We need fewer cars and especially not ones that have shown they will just run people over without care.

    Not to mention cars steal resources from other countries, whether it be oil or metal for batteries etc. What we need is more publically funded transport that actually works well and is quick, safe and even rich people/politicans would travel on.

    One of the worst things ever invented to a degree was cars especially since they often install roadways to completely bypass small ‘out of the way’ places or worse make cities completely designed around them since there are no places to walk, play or hang out (that’s a slight aside but I do think the death of third places has cars partially to blame).

    We also need for transport companies to start recycling and actually start caring about their own waste management.

    Also, don’t make me laugh that it’s Elon that is ‘lightyears’ away from self driving cars, it’s Tesla and all the people who actually do the work, Elon is an mediocre man who gets worshiped way too much for having too much money, spending it irresponsibly, acting irresponsibly and then taking all the credit for other’s hard work, just like every other billionaire out there.