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The 2030 Self-Driving Car Bet
Jeff Atwood · news.movim.eu / CodingHorror · Friday, 4 March, 2022 - 18:53 · 2 minutes
It's my honor to announce that John Carmack and I have initiated a friendly bet of $10,000* to the 501(c)(3) charity of the winner’s choice:
By January 1st, 2030, completely autonomous self-driving cars meeting SAE J3016 level 5 will be commercially available for passenger use in major cities.
I am betting against , and John is betting for .
I have another long-term bet:
I bet @codinghorror $10k that by January 1st, 2030, completely autonomous self-driving cars meeting SAE J3016 level 5 will be commercially available for passenger use in major cities. \— John Carmack (@ID_AA_Carmack) March 4, 2022
By “completely autonomous”, per the SAE level 5 definition , we mean the vehicle performs all driving tasks under all conditions – except in the case of natural disasters or emergencies. A human passenger enters the vehicle and selects a destination. Zero human attention or interaction is required during the journey.
![](https://blog.codinghorror.com/content/images/2022/03/image.png)
By "major cities" we mean any of the top 10 most populous cities in the United States of America.
To be clear, I am betting against because I think everyone is underestimating how difficult fully autonomous driving really is . I am by no means against self driving vehicles in any way! I'd much rather spend my time in a vehicle reading, watching videos, or talking to my family and friends … anything, really, instead of driving. I also think fully autonomous vehicles are a fascinating, incredibly challenging computer science problem, and I want everyone reading this to take it as just that, a challenge . Prove me wrong! Make it happen by 2030, and I'll be popping champagne along with you and everyone else!
(My take on VR is far more pessimistic . VR just… isn't going to happen, in any "changing the world" form, in our lifetimes. This is a subject for a different blog post, but I think AR and projection will do much more for us, far sooner.)
I'd like to thank John for suggesting this friendly wager as a fun way to generate STEM publicity. He is, and always will be, one of my biggest heroes . Go read Masters of Doom if you haven't, already!
And while I have you, we're still looking for code contributions in our project to update the most famous programming book of the BASIC era . Proceeds from that project will also go to charity. 😎
* We may adjust the amount up or down to adjust for inflation as mutually agreed upon in 2030, so the money has the desired impact.