DaFranker comments on AI timeline predictions: are we getting better? - Less Wrong

54 Post author: Stuart_Armstrong 17 August 2012 07:07AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (78)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: DaFranker 22 August 2012 05:51:24PM *  6 points [-]

VTOLs are possible. Many UAVs are VTOL aircraft. Make a bigger one that can carry a person and a few grocery bags instead of a sensor battery, add some wheels for "Ground Mode", and you've essentially got a flying car. An extremely impractical, high-maintenance, high-cost, airspace-constricted, inefficient, power-hungry flying car that almost no one will want to buy, but a flying car nonetheless.

I'm not an expert either, but it seems to me like the difference between "flying car" and "helicopter with wheels" is mostly a question of distance in empirical thingspace-of-stuff-we-could-build, which is a design and fitness-for-purpose issue.