Ford, VW-backed Argo AI is shutting down

HN has been regularly correct warning about the immense difficulties in getting self-driving working consistently for almost a decade, now that we're close to 2023.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/686279251293777920

Musk in 2016: "In ~2 years, summon should work anywhere connected by land & not blocked by borders, eg you're in LA and the car is in NY"

I operate a technology company based out of Pittsburgh PA. Have a number of friends who work there so this stinks.

Looking past that, seems to conform to the long tailspin self driving has been in since the overhyped 2017-2018 era.

Hopefully everyone lands on their feet. Anyone interested in solving large problems in the waste industry using automation, feel free to reach out @cdolan92 on Twitter

Wow I remember the hype and the fundraising circa 2016-2018 given Salesky and Rander’s background in academia, Google, Waymo, and Uber ATG. just another sign that people were too optimistic about achieving level 5 autonomy during the last decade…

The first real large scale (and possibly positive ROI, not too sure yet) use case for autonomy will be in freight, not passenger cars. And that still has so many challenges beyond the tech (laws, liability, network inefficiencies, single digit margin business already) that it’s, in the practical sense, still at least a decade away. Now, autonomy to make trucks safer: sure, keep it coming. The challenge will be making it cost effective enough.

I am willing to argue with myself here though: I do think there are very practical use cases near term for closed circuit autonomy. Things like senior living communities, or the Las Vegas strip (I told my wife a few weeks ago when there that I bet in ten years humans won’t be allowed to drive on the strip) are perfect for just closing down all human traffic and effectively allowing a giant trolley/shuttle service to run safely in the street.

Could have interesting implications for city/community planning over time. You could potentially narrow all the streets and make everything one way since the cars can just flow together better.

They raised absolutely massive capital and were a huge tech player in the Pittsburgh ecosystem. It stinks to see them ultimately fail.

> Argo AI wasn't able to attract new investors and that it was taking a "$2.7 billion non-cash, pretax impairment on its investment" in the company, which led to it posting an $827 million net loss for Q3.

Looks like investors/backers lost confidence seeing how far behind they are off the leaders (Waymo/Cruise)