I remember attending a lecture from a famous quantum computing researcher in 2003. He said that quantum computing is 15-20 years away and then he followed up by saying that if he told anyone it was further away then he wouldn't get funding!
Fusion research lives and dies on this premise, ignoring the hard problems that require fundamental breakthroughs in areas such as materials science, in favor of touting arbitrary benchmarks that don't indicate real progress towards fusion as a source of power on the grid.
"Full self driving" is another example; your car won't be doing this, but companies will brag about limited roll-outs of niche cases in dry, flat, places that are easy to navigate.
Not expecting my car to be self-driving anytime soon, but I have understood there is actual working robotaxi service in San Francisco which is not easy or flat? I think we can’t keep saying self driving cars will never happen when this kind of thing already exists.
According to their website, Waymo offers autonomous rides to the general public in Austin, Atlanta, Phoenix, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Los Angeles [1].
* San Francisco is an extremely hilly city that gets a fair bit of fog.
* Los Angeles has notorious traffic and particularly aggressive drivers.
* Atlanta gets ~50 inches of rain a year, more than Seattle [2].
[1] https://waymo.com/faq/#:~:text=Where%20does%20Waymo%20operat...
[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/marshallshepherd/2024/09/03/whi...