> The level of hype about AI, Machine Learning and Robotics completely distorts people’s understanding of reality. It distorts where VC money goes, always to something that promises impossibly large payoffs–it seems it is better to have an untested idea that would have an enormous payoff than a tested idea which can get to a sustainable business, but does not change the world for ever.

One thing to remember is that there is more than one target audience in these claims. VCs for example seem to operate on a rough principle of 5 tech companies, 4 make 0x and one makes 10x, for a total 2x on each investment. If you only promise 5x, with 4 failures of 0x and one success at 5x, total return is 1x on each (not worth the risk). You may say "yes, my company is 2x, but it is guaranteed!" - but they all sell this idea. VCs could be infinitely good at predicting success and great companies, but it's based on partial information. Essentially companies have to promise the 10x and the VCs assume they are likely incorrect anyway, in order to balance the risk profile.

I do have a fundamental problem with this "infinite growth" model that almost everything seems based on.

> There is steady growth in sales but my prediction of 30% of US car sales being electric by 2027 now seems wildly optimistic. We need two doublings to get there in three years and the doubling rate seems more like one doubling in four to five years.

Even one doubling in 4-5 years might be too much. There are fundamental issues to be addressed:

1. What do we do about crashed EVs? They are dangerous to store and dangerous to dismantle. There have been quite a few EV fires at places like Copart now. There is little to no value in crashed EVs because they are so dangerous, which pushes insurance up because they cannot recover these funds.

2. Most car dealerships in the UK refuse to accept EVs for trade-in, because they sit on their forecourt until they eventually die. Those who can afford EVs typically get them on finance when the batteries provide the fullest range. Nobody I know is buying 10 year old EVs with no available replacement batteries. Commerical fleets are also not buying any more EVs as they essentially get no money back after using them for 3 years or so.

3. The electrical grid cannot scale to handle EVs. With every Western country decarbonising their electrical grid in favour of renewable energy, they have zero ability to respond to increased load.

The truth is, when they push to remove fossil fuel vehicles, they simply want to take your personal transport from you. There is no plan for everybody to maintain personal mobility, it'll be a privilege reserved for the rich. You'll be priced out and put onto public transport, where there will be regular strikes because the government is broke and wages cannot increase - because who knew, infinite growth is a terrible investment model.

> The other thing that has gotten over hyped in 2024 is humanoids robots.

> The visual appearance of a robot makes a promise about what it can do and how smart it is.

The real sin is not HRI issues, it's that we simply cannot justify them. What job is a humanoid robot supposed to do? Who is going to be buying tens of thousands of the first unit? What is the killer application? What will a humanoid robot do that it is not cheaper/more effective to do with a real human, or cannot be done better with a specialised robot?

Anything you can think of which is a humanoid robot performing a single physical action repeatedly, is wrong. It would need to be a series of tasks that keeps the robot highly busy, and the nature of the work needs to be somewhat unpredictable (otherwise use a dedicated robot). After all, humans are successful not because we do one thing well, but because we do many not-well defined things good-enough. This kind of generalisation is probably harder than all other AI problems, and likely requires massive advances in real-time learning, embodiment and intrinsic motivation.

What we need sub-problems for robots, i.e. like a smart vacuum, where robots are slowly but surely introduced into complex environments where they can safely incrementally improve. Trying to crack self-driving 1+ tonne high speed death machines in your first attempt is insanity.