Why Not Use Self-Driving Cars as Supercomputers?
Like Dogecoin devotees, the mayor of Reno, and the leaders of El Salvador, Aldo Baoicchi is convinced cryptocurrency is the future. The CEO and founder of Canadian scooter maker Daymak believes this so strongly that when he unveiled the company’s first autonomous car last month, the 2023 Spiritus, he touted a bonus feature: the ability to mine cryptocurrency when the car is parked. Baiocchi told WIRED the company is still developing software for this purpose, but designers want cryptomining for car owners to be as simple as pressing a button. He says solar power on the roof of the three-wheeled electric car should help offset the energy consumption of mining Bitcoin.
“We have the equipment in the car. We figure we might as well mine and make some money for the rider,” he said. Car buyers now consider factors like safety, fuel economy, and resale value. But some businesses are beginning to talk about the computing power packed into autonomous vehicles as a selling point.
The Rand Corporation estimates that autonomous vehicles on roads could save hundreds of thousands of lives and change the world, but they could also change the world when parked in the garage. The computing power in autonomous cars could be harnessed to tackle problems as personal as editing a high-definition video or as global as decoding a new virus.
