Disclosure: I intend to bet in this market myself. Ask clarifying questions before trading.
FAQ
1. If you're reading a book you're obviously not driving?
True fact. What I mean is, when can I (safely, see next FAQ item) read a book while sitting in the driver's seat of a private car, being the sole human in charge of the car.
2. Technically you can do this in a Yugo?
It has to be safe to do! Hacking the self-driving tech to bypass the "is the driver watching the road" mechanism also doesn't count. So also legal, though if the law were to fall blatantly behind what's clearly safe, we can talk about that.
3. What about Waymo?
Yes, Waymo is (33 million) miles ahead here but won't count until they offer their tech for private cars.
4. Isn't Tesla basically there?
Tesla has been making progress but as of early 2025, if you're consistently absorbed in a book while in the driver's seat of a Tesla it's pretty much a matter of time before it kills you.
5. What about Mercedes's offering?
As of early 2025, Mercedes offers SAE level 3 on certain highways in California and Nevada when there's a traffic jam keeping the speeds below 40mph, with another car it can follow, in daylight in good weather with clear lane markings etc. That's a great start but for this market we need to be closer to SAE level 4 (like Waymo). Plus much fewer restrictions. (I'll add FAQ items for each candidate restriction after discussing them in the comments.)
6. If this happens in, say, 2027, does 2028 also resolve YES?
No, we're predicting the exact year. This is a probability density function (pdf), not a cumulative distribution function (cdf).
Note that I'm betting in this market myself while committing to make the resolution fair. I'll be transparent about my reasoning and if there are good-faith objections, I'll hear them out, we'll discuss, and I'll outsource the final decision if needed. Note the evolving FAQ. The expectation is that bettors ask clarifying questions before betting, to minimize the chances of it coming down to a judgment call.
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Scratch area for auto-generated AI updates
Don't believe what magically appears down here; I'll add clarifications to the FAQ.
1,000Where does this need to apply? All of the leading self-driving car companies so far have focused on areas in the US where it's usually warm weather, doesn't snow much, and they have lots of driving data. Does it count if it's just available in those areas? If so, that seems like a pretty weak question, but maybe all that you're trying to get at here.
Or I guess as a more general question, is this asking "when will specifically Daniel Reeves, for the first time, be able to do this, in any situation", or is this asking "when will a generic person with the right car be able to do this"? If the first, does a private race track count, or does it need to be on public roads? What if it's technically a private car but it's a million dollar car that a friend of yours owns, or something like that? Does a rental car count, if you have it for a week at a time as opposed to a short taxi ride?
@Gabrielle Excellent question. I don't think it should be super solipsistic but I'd say for the spirit of the question it should include cities like Portland. If it can't do snow, that's ok. Even if it can't handle rain or nighttime, that doesn't seem like inherently a no to me. Like imagine I'm flexible about where and when I drive -- can I read a book 90% of the time I'm behind the wheel? What do you think? (Note this isn't official till I add it to the FAQ)
@dreev I’m thinking that the way to operationalize this would be “When do I actually do this in my own private car, or could if I simply decided to buy a new car that can”, with some reasonable requirement for availability and price.
@Tyler31 Waymo asks for human assistance sometimes when the car is stopped. You'd expect a self-driving private car to ask the person in the driver's seat to take over in those scenarios. But anything Waymo does is allowed for the purpose of this question. I'll clarify this in the FAQ, thank you!
@Tyler31 I'm agonizing about this because I hate for it to be US centric but maybe realistically it will be? See my answer to @Gabrielle. Any ideas for operationalizing this? How about in terms of the size of the market being served? So it would be unlikely but not impossible for this to resolve YES without being available to Americans?
@ian Correct! Adding an FAQ item now to clarify, thank you.
PS: And I also added the word "first" to the title. Thanks again!
First question: how ubiquitous should this need to be to count? Let's say that if it only works on highways with heavy traffic, that's not enough to count. But that still leaves plenty of room for ambiguity. What if it works on roughly half of US highways and it can go the speed limit but needs another car to follow?
I'd say the spirit of the question is, can I expect to mostly be able to read for most car trips?