TED: When Cars Become Alive (my 3 min speech)

In the above short video (or access directly), I make the case that your future car will be like a living creature, able to predict what we want, and even start to reproduce.

I had a mere three minutes to present and deliver a single concept on the largest physical TED stage in Frankfurt Germany in conjunction with BMW at the world’s largest auto show. Over 180 people submitted ideas, and 6 folks were invited by the TED team to bring that idea to the stage. Of course, I was delighted to be selected. We had many planning calls, and a seasoned TED speaker was assigned to mentor me. I rehearsed about 50 times, and we did multiple dress rehearsals to get it right. Weeks of preparing for just a few minutes on stage I gave it my all.

My topic? What happens when powerful AI connects to self driving cars, what kind of world would it be?

First, these self driving cars will connect to our online Calenders, giving them ability to automatically escort us around. Then they’ll connect to our smart fridges, getting the milk and eggs before they run out. Then they’ll connect to our social networks, analyzing what type of mood we’re in, setting the experience of the ride. Then they’ll connect to our search engines, and can take us to places we didn’t even know we’d love. It thinks, anticipates, and acts before we know we need something.

At that magical point, these cars become alive, but it won’t stop there. These cars will act like humans. They’ll generate revenues just as human workers do, by offering rides to individuals and ferrying parcels around town. Then, they’ll self-charge, just as we eat our meals and drink our energy drinks. After that, they’ll use their savings to upgrade their tires, upholstery, and even have installed a new VR entertainment system. At this next magical point, it knows to purchase another car, to increase its fleet, it reproduces just as humans do.

In this radical future, these distributed managed vehicles will become like a living species, able to self-sustain, grow, and reproduce. Of course this sounds far-fetched but we’re seeing similar behaviors with Blockchain: decentralized, unknown creator, and it’s growing at a scalable rate.

So what type of future does this mean for society? I address this in the speech, but I am optimistic that we can create a meaningful society for us all, but we need to start planning now the impacts to society are not an afterthought we can clean up later, these technologies are going to grow at exponential rates.