In a recent
interview, the MD of Daimler Benz (Mercedes Benz) said their competitors are no
longer other car companies but Tesla (obvious), Google, Apple, Amazon.
- Software will disrupt most traditional
industries in the next 5-10 years. - Uber is
just a software tool, they don’t own any cars, and are now the biggest
taxi company in the world - Airbnb is now the biggest hotel
company in the world, although they don’t own any properties. - Artificial Intelligence: Computers become exponentially
better in understanding the world. This year, a computer beat the best Go
player in the world, 10 years earlier than expected.
In the US, young lawyers already don’t get
jobs. Because of IBM Watson, you can get legal advice (so far for more or less
basic stuff) within seconds, with 90% accuracy compared with 70% accuracy when
done by humans.
So if you study law, stop immediately. There
will be 90% less lawyers in the future, only specialists will remain.Watson
already helps nurses diagnosing cancer, 4 times more accurate than human
nurses. Facebook now has a pattern recognition software that can recognize
faces better than humans. In 2030, computers will become more
intelligent than humans.
- Autonomous cars: In 2018 the first self driving
cars will appear for the public. Around 2020, the complete industry will
start to be disrupted. You don’t want to own a car anymore. You will call
a car with your phone, it will show up at your location and drive you to
your destination. You will not need to park it, you only pay for the
driven distance and can be productive while driving. Our kids will never
get a driver’s licence and will never own a car.It will change the cities,
because we will need 90-95% less cars for that. We can transform former
parking spaces into parks. 1.2 million people die each year in car
accidents worldwide. We now have one accident every 60,000 miles (100,000
km), with autonomous driving that will drop to one accident in 6 million
miles (10 million km). That will save a million lives each year.
Most car companies will probably become
bankrupt. Traditional car companies try the evolutionary approach and just
build a better car, while tech companies (Tesla, Apple, Google) will do the
revolutionary approach and build a computer on wheels.
Many engineers from Volkswagen and Audi; are
completely terrified of Tesla.
- Insurance companies will have massive trouble because without accidents, the insurance
will become 100x cheaper. Their car insurance business model will
disappear. - Real estate will change. Because if you can work while you commute, people
will move further away to live in a more beautiful neighborhood. - Electric cars will become
mainstream about 2020. Cities will be less noisy because all new cars will
run on electricity. Electricity will become incredibly cheap and clean: Solar
production has been on an exponential curve for 30 years, but you can
now see the burgeoning impact.
Last year, more solar energy was installed
worldwide than fossil. Energy companies are desperately trying to limit access
to the grid to prevent competition from home solar installations, but that
can’t last. Technology will take care of that strategy.
- With cheap electricity comes
cheap and abundant water. Desalination of salt water now only needs 2kWh
per cubic meter (@ 0.25 cents). We don’t have scarce water in most places,
we only have scarce drinking water. Imagine what will be possible if
anyone can have as much clean water as he wants, for nearly no cost. - Health: The Tricorder X price will be
announced this year. There are companies who will build a medical device
(called the ”Tricorder” from Star Trek) that works with your
phone, which takes your retina scan, your blood sample and you breath into
it. - It then analyses 54 biomarkers
that will identify nearly any disease. It will be cheap, so in a few years
everyone on this planet will have access to world class medical analysis,
nearly for free. Goodbye, medical establishment. - 3D printing: The price of the cheapest 3D
printer came down from $18,000 to $400 within 10 years. In the same time,
it became 100 times faster. All major shoe companies have already started
3D printing shoes.Some spare airplane parts are already 3D printed in
remote airports. The space station now has a printer that eliminates the
need for the large amount of spare parts they used to have in the past.
At the end of this year, new smart phones will
have 3D scanning possibilities. You can then 3D scan your feet and print your
perfect shoe at home.
In China, they already 3D printed and built a
complete 6-storey office building. By 2027, 10% of everything that’s being
produced will be 3D printed.
- Business opportunities: If you think of a niche you
want to go in, ask yourself: ”in the future, do you think we will
have that?” and if the answer is yes, how can you make that happen
sooner?
If it doesn’t work with your phone, forget the
idea. And any idea designed for success in the 20th century is doomed to
failure in the 21st century.
- Work: 70-80% of jobs will disappear
in the next 20 years. There will be a lot of new jobs, but it is not clear
if there will be enough new jobs in such a small time. - Agriculture: There will be a $100
agricultural robot in the future. Farmers in 3rd world countries can then
become managers of their field instead of working all day on their fields. - Aeroponics will need much less water. The first Petri dish produced veal, is
now available and will be cheaper than cow produced veal in 2018. Right
now, 30% of all agricultural surfaces is used for cows. Imagine if we
don’t need that space anymore. There are several startups who will bring
insect protein to the market shortly. It contains more protein than meat.
It will be labelled as ”alternative protein source” (because
most people still reject the idea of eating insects). - There is an app called
”moodies” which can already tell in which mood you’re in. By
2020 there will be apps that can tell by your facial expressions, if you
are lying. Imagine a political debate where it’s being displayed when
they’re telling the truth and when they’re not. - Bitcoin may
even become the default reserve currency … Of the world! - Longevity: Right now, the average life
span increases by 3 months per year. Four years ago, the life span used to
be 79 years, now it’s 80 years. The increase itself is increasing and by
2036, there will be more than one year increase per year. So we all might
live for a long long time, probably way more than 100. - Education: The cheapest smart phones are
already at $10 in Africa and Asia. By 2020, 70% of all humans will own a
smart phone. That means, everyone has the same access to world class
education. - Every child can use Khan academy for everything a child needs to learn at
school in First World countries. There have already been releases of
software in Indonesia and soon there will be releases in Arabic, Suaheli
and Chinese this summer. I can see enormous potential if we give the
English app for free, so that children in Africa and everywhere else can
become fluent in English and that could happen within half a year
