If transportation technology was moving along as fast as microprocessor technology, then the day after tomorrow I would be able to get in a taxi cab and be in Tokyo in 30 seconds.

Hillis uses a deliberately absurd comparison to dramatize how uneven technological progress can be. Microprocessors improved at an exponential pace for decades (often summarized as Moore’s law), while transportation has advanced far more incrementally, constrained by energy density, safety, infrastructure, and physics. The “taxi to Tokyo in 30 seconds” image is a thought experiment: if the same compounding improvement applied to travel speed and cost, everyday life would be transformed beyond recognition. The remark also cautions against assuming that all technologies will follow the same curve as computing, and it highlights why computing’s rapid gains can distort expectations about innovation in other domains.