Linear Thinking Versus Exponential Thinking - Selfdriving Cars Coming Sooner Than Most People Think

Linear Thinking About The Future Of Cars

A U.K. government think tank has forecast "RFID-tagged driverless cars on roads by 2056. "Given the ability of several cars to navigate a complex route in the recent DARPA competition completely autonomously and a General Motors project to demonstrate driverless cars traveling at 60 miles per hour by 2008, the projection of RFID-controlled cars by the year 2056 is a good example of linear thinking," says Ray Kurzweil. "I believe we can anticipate cars to be doing much of our driving for us in the 2020s if not sooner."

You're damn straight it's an example of linear thinking.

Progress is accelerating exponentially. Linear extrapolations will not give you an accurate view of the future. Exponential extrapolations, however, do.