Sam Anthony, former CTO at Perceptive Automata, and Phil Koopman, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, both acknowledged that while the concept is possible, it may not be practical. They highlighted the challenges of coordinating geographically distributed nodes, the necessity of good Wi-Fi and the vehicle being plugged in, and the difficulties of scaling the project. Koopman concluded that while it's an interesting idea, most such concepts do not turn out to be practical.
Key takeaways:
- Elon Musk proposed the idea of using the unused compute power of idle Tesla vehicles, comparing it to Amazon’s cloud service business, during an earnings call with investors.
- Sam Anthony, former CTO at Perceptive Automata, said it's 'perfectly possible' to split large computing tasks over lots of small nodes, but highlighted issues such as reliance on the car’s battery for power and connectivity and speed issues.
- Phil Koopman, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, acknowledged that the project could work but pointed out challenges in scalability and the need for serious experimental confirmation of its viability.
- Musk's idea is seen as interesting, but experts caution that most cool ideas like this do not turn out to be practical.