It’s not surprising that the COVID pandemic has gotten us all thinking about technology that can take the human element out of day-to-day “personal” interactions. There have been some very interesting, new adaptations of existing Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies, not the least of which is the introduction of robotic baristas and bartenders

There’s even robotic COVID testing. No thanks on that one for me, by the way. It already feels like that swab is going somewhere no human should ever venture. But if robots can be used in heart surgery, I suppose we can trust them with nasal swabs. 

Cobots (collaborative robots, designed to perform functions alongside human beings) are supporting the COVID fight in other ways too – like decontaminating healthcare and travel facilities and performing temperature screenings. They’re also taking on more roles on factory floors, allowing for fewer workers in close proximity.

Another fascinating area of AI that’s evolving throughout this period is autonomous (i.e. driverless) transportation and shipping in all of its manifestations – land, rail, air, and sea. As we’ll see below, in some cases these advances can be attributed to COVID-driven applications. In other cases, they’re a continuation of the steady progress that’s been underway for many years.

One if by road

Demand for ride-hailing services plummeted during the pandemic, with Uber and Lyft ridership down between 70% and 80% this past summer. After all, these services still can’t remove the human element of sharing proximity with a driver whose hygiene and health are unknowns. No doubt that was an impetus for Uber’s exploration of autonomous driving through its Advanced Technology Group. But given its dire financial situation, it’s not surprising that Uber reportedly plans to sell that division.

Has COVID in fact spurred the technology related to autonomous road vehicles? It’s hard to make that case. The time horizon, if anything, continues to push further out.

• Experts optimistically say we’ll see the earliest commercial use of autonomous trucks in 2021.
• Interestingly, autonomous cars seem to be a bit further off, with testing likely to continue for the next couple of years.

Two if by rail

Autonomous rail transportation systems by their nature are much easier to manage since movement is limited to forward and backward along a defined track. It’s no wonder we’ve already seen these autonomous systems in place for many years in small, self-contained areas such as the airport terminal connection “trains.”

Autonomous mass rail transit through cities is not far behind and long-distance rail will follow shortly thereafter.

Have these autonomous rail trendlines been accelerated by COVID? Again, likely not since they don’t ease any COVID spread concerns except for the safety of the driver/conductor who is often well-separated from the subway/metro passengers anyway. And in the case of autonomous long-distance rail transportation, the public, in general, isn’t ready for driverless Amtrak, so all the focus has been on freight transportation, which generally is done with a very small crew on board.

Three if by air

When it comes to air flights, it’s very important to distinguish between self-flying aircraft with pilots on board and autonomous, unmanned aircraft. “Autopilot” has been around for a long time, even as it’s getting more and more sophisticated.

Other breakthroughs in autonomous air traffic, however, have been very apparent recently as we see new COVID-related applications for fixed-wing and rotor drone technology. During the pandemic, drones have been put to use around the world to apply disinfectants in large areas, surveil for distancing compliance, deliver emergency medical supplies, and even detect the virus – albeit from an uncomfortably close range of 10 meters. Retailers are utilizing drones more and more as the last link connecting the supply chain to the consumer as more and more people avoid crowds and order online.

Four if by sea

Similar to air travel, the story is mixed along the same delineation between advances in auto-piloting vs autonomous ship captaining. It’s doubtful we’ll see public acceptance of autonomous passenger ships anytime soon, but there have been tremendous strides bringing us closer to autonomous cargo shipping. Some of the most exciting innovations include:

• Shipping companies have been testing a collision-avoidance system by Orca AI to supplement existing radar systems with better proactive warnings and corrective guidance.
• A Norwegian chemical company is developing an electric, autonomous container ship for use in a limited region off the coast of that country.
• Next year, IBM and ProMare, a non-profit ocean research organization, will send the solar-powered Mayflower Autonomous Ship across the Atlantic with self-contained AI and navigational equipment … and no crew.

How Soon?

Have you considered becoming part of the emerging drivable mobile office generation?

Yes, there has been a massive shift to working from home and 88% of organizations in the U.S. have encouraged or required their employees to work from home and 91% of teams in the Asian Pacific Region have implemented ‘work from home’ arrangements since the outbreak.

A recent Gardner study showed business endurance was a top concern for C-level executives with 71% worried about continuity and productivity during the pandemic.

However, remote work has done more than insure continuity, it’s had a positive impact on workforce retention, so much so that organizations should expect 75% of their staff to ask for expanded remote work hours in the future.

Managed correctly, remote work will dramatically boost productivity. Gardner concluded that remote workers are 35-40% more productive than people who work in corporate offices.

For the company, 77% of executives agree that it will lower operating expenses.

Because of this, remote work is here to stay and 74% of companies plan to permanently shift to more remote work as we move into the post-Covid era.

With these changes permeating business culture, workers are now being unleashed to explore far more exotic lifestyles by taking their work with them as they explore the world.

Developing Mobile Work-Life Strategies

For many, summer is the time to hit the road in a camper or RV, taking time off work to see the country from the comfort of a home on wheels.

But many free-spirited adventurers are now thinking summer never has to end. Taking advantage of the growing ubiquity of wireless Internet, the RV or camper can easily be converted into a drivable mobile office.

As of last year, 8.9 million American households owned RVs, and a smaller subset included roughly a half-million who lived full-time on the road. But it’s hard to know exactly how many of those full-timers and part-timers have actually learned how to work from the road.

After Covid-19, the nature of telework is making it easier than ever to work without a fixed physical location.

Naturally one of the critical components of having a remote office is good Wi-Fi. According to KOA CEO Pat Hittmeier, almost all 485 KOA campgrounds sites across the country have free Wi-Fi.

When Wi-Fi is not in range, those doing business on the go will turn to network air cards or satellite dishes.

We have seen a recent explosion of people opting to take their work in this fashion. A record number of RVs, motorcoaches, fifth wheel campers, and trailers are currently in the process of being converted into both office and living spaces.

If you ask why they’ve chosen to do their work from a recreational vehicle, many will cite the freedom that comes with a mobile lifestyle.

Whether they’re working from an RV park in Tuscan, a hotel room in Seattle, or their grandmother’s farm in Indiana, both their work-life and family-life will undergo a number of transitions along the way.

Establishing a Mobile Base of Operations

Mobile offices don’t need to be fancy, they only need to be functional! [/caption]People tend to forget the importance of their local traffic patterns, because where they go and people they meet with on a semi-regular basis is important.

For example, moving into a new city they’ll need to find good referrals for doctors, dentists, chiropractors, auto mechanics, and veterinarians.

While most interactions with bankers, accountants, and lawyers can be done remotely, getting an engine repaired, finding an electrician, plumber, or new tires will require adding a few new contacts to a smartphone.

Even coordinating the delivery of an Amazon package can be a challenge.

Those who are on specialty diets such as vegan, gluten-free, lactose-free, or vegetarian may have trouble finding restaurant options in remote locations.

Very few situations, however, will be considered serious show-stoppers for the determined traveler.

Mobile offices don’t need to be fancy, they only need to be functional!

Going Driverless

Driverless technology will invariably open the door to a whole new era of non-commuting vehicles, and one of the earliest examples we’ll see will be the driverless mobile office.

If you can imagine having an “office” pull up in your driveway, with dimmable windows, projectors, sound systems, 5G-enabled, with flexible, reconfigurable furniture that is perfect for both working alone and hosting meetings, you’ll get the picture.

Executives only need wireless access and the entire day can be managed from their mobile office, picking up people for each new meeting, and dropping them off before the next meeting begins.

Rather than working from an isolated home or a single office, mobile offices will add exotic new dimensions to every workday. But they can be far more than just an office.

A mobile office can also be working laboratories, tattoo parlors, manufacturing operation, arbitration court, zoning resolution station, police command center, mobile ER, fertility clinic, or pawn shop. Some will be owned by government agencies, some by businesses, but others will be part of a fleet and leased on a per-use basis.

Most importantly, these vehicles can operate as moving billboards, wrapped in branding slogans, with marketing messages emblazoned on every available surface.

In the not-too-distant future, driverless mobile offices will be common in most cities!

Final Thoughts

If you’re considering setting up a driveable mobile office, you’re not alone. But having the perfect office to fit your needs may be challenging.

Offices designed for a podcaster, videographer, graphic artist, programmer, script writer, jewelry maker, and movie editor will all require different toolsets.

In general, remote offices need a well-designed desk, good chair, great computer, ergonomic layout, solid internet connection, privacy, backup storage, and excellent lighting. You might also want to include extra video cameras, microphones, switchers, and backup plans for when things go wrong because things will always go wrong.

As the world emerges from the coronavirus, one nation after another will rise out of their collective cabin-fever. With lingering fears about social distancing and a possible return of the virus during flu season, travelers will most likely focus on drivable options.

Many places are already documenting an increase in camping and outdoor activities in areas where the current coronavirus hit earlier than the U.S., namely in Japan and Korea, where families are pitching tents rather than staying in hotels.

As air travel limps back into operation and most public transportation systems around the world are operating on drastically reduced schedules, people are re-imagining new ways to travel in a post-pandemic world.

Road trips are poised to make a resurgence as travelers shy away from international destinations requiring long flights and walking through crowded airports. They’re looking to travel and enjoy all the wonders of the world in ways that they feel are safe and comfortable.

For these reasons, we are witnessing a powerful new trend where the idea of working from a drivable office takes center stage.

The impact of driverless vehicles will be profound, touching almost every aspect of our lives, and the level of disruption will be staggering.

It will not only change the way we get from point A to point B, but also how we think about shopping, entertainment, dining out, as well as the design of our buildings, houses, hospitals, churches, and shopping centers.

It will shift how we manage our businesses, how we schedule our time, how we interact with our friends, and what we should invest in.

Virtually every facet of society, in every country around the world, will be touched by driverless technologies, and the vast majority of it is destined to improve our global standard of living.

Yes, there will be job losses, but they will be offset by job creation. Businesses that disappear will be replaced by innovative new businesses.

As transportation becomes faster, cheaper, and easier, we will simply do more of it. We will become a very fluid society, and all this movement will seem natural and effortless.

However, the path to progress is strewn with countless land mines and pitfalls. Many things will go wrong as every new tech journey is never smooth.

Vehicle design will rapidly iterate from one design to the next.

28 Reasons

Here are a few of my latest thoughts on the impact of driverless tech.

1. People will still own their own cars in the future, but it will be a rapidly declining number.

Transportation-as-a-service companies will first spring up in large metro areas and expand into small towns and rural communities. But few of the early fleet owners will be interested in small-town-small-profit communities, even though they might serve as a far more manageable proving ground. With both human drivers and autonomous vehicles sharing the same highways, a number of complications will crop up to impede progress.

2. Car manufacturers will most likely be the early fleet owners.

While software and tech companies are taking over many industries (i.e. some of the biggest banks in the future will be tech companies), car manufacturing still requires unique skills and companies such as Tesla, Toyota, and Ford will be in a deciding position as to how their cars will be used. They will also have the greatest potential for responding to rapidly shifting market demands. Self-driving cars will be heavily used, 24-7 if possible, and fleet owners will learn the nuances of customer preferences first hand, translating quickly evolving expectations into next generation design details in a matter of months. For this reason, it will be in the manufacturer’s best interest to eliminate every possible barrier between design teams and end users as they rapidly iterate from one design to the next, and grapple with emerging business models in the process.

3. One autonomous car will replace roughly 30 traditional cars.

There are roughly 273 million registered vehicles in the U.S. and replacing them all will be a long drawn out process. But here’s the math most people don’t understand. For a city of 2 million people, a fleet of 30,000 autonomous vehicles will displace 50% of peak commuter traffic. During off-peak times, 30,000 autonomous vehicles will handle virtually all other transportation needs. Peak traffic times will naturally be the hardest to manage.

4. Vehicle design will rapidly iterate from one design to the next.

Car companies have spent so much time in the race to get the technology safe and functional that they haven’t taken time to understand the evolving expectations of driverless customers. As an example, people will still pay more to ride in luxury vehicles, but our definition of luxury will change. Ease of entrance and exit will become important issues. So will lighting, visibility, noise levels, entertainment option, seating arrangements, and cleanliness. The operating systems for driverless tech will also evolve quickly as use cases grow and adaptive self-learning AI-based neural networks respond to every new situation. Eventually all technology to support human drivers will disappear, including steering wheels, dashboards, gas pedals, and brake pedals. Instead, vehicles will be designed around comfort, conversations, entertainment, project spaces, desktops, power outlets, and snacking/eating.

5. Child seats will be the most challenging feature to design in self-driving cars.

For parents, the safety of their children takes priority over virtually every aspect of their life. The elaborate process of strapping kids into their seat and buckling each of them into a five-point harness has become a routine way of life for moms and dads everywhere. Let’s face it. Kids are messy, dirty, get sick, throw up, toss things, and find ways to turn a perfectly clean vehicle into a waste management problem in a matter of seconds. At the same time, fleet owners will not want to ignore kids because they represent a significant percentage of the marketplace.

6. Other major design issues will include dealing with pets, service animals, handicap people, elderly, and politicians.

What if a daycare center needs a vehicle with six car seats? What if a dog trainer has to pick up four dogs? What if an assisted care center has three people in wheelchairs that want to travel together? What if politicians pass a law requiring fleet owners to accommodate all of these situations?

7. Next generation storage cells will mean that batteries will never have to be changed on autonomous vehicles.

If Tesla’s latest claims holds true, they will soon have a battery that lasts a million miles. This means the rest of the car will wear out before the batteries.

8. Car death and accident rates will plummet.

In 2018, roughly 40,000 people lost their lives in car crashes, and about 4.5 million people were seriously injured in crashes. Over the next three decades we will see a constantly shifting ratio of human drivers vs. autonomous vehicles. As human drivers decline, death and injury rates will fall. Our safest form of transportation is the airline industry. If we can get car safety even close to that of airlines, we will save tons of lives and lifelong injuries in the process.

9. We currently spend over $500 billion per year repairing people after car accidents.

This amounts to one out of every six dollars in the healthcare industry. Cars are taking a huge toll on our society.

10. How will autonomous cars affect retail?

In a big way! Over time there will be no more customer-facing mechanics, tire shops, brake shops, car washes, auto parts stores, or gas stations. Over 10% of retail is car related and likely to disappear.

11. Autonomous vehicles will be used to create driverless mobile businesses.

As we removed the driver from the equation driverless tech opens the door to completely different ways of doing business, ones that separate themselves from a permanent location. The number one challenge of traditional retail has always been driving customers to the store. As we move into a highly mobile marketplace, this type of business will soon be able to drive to where the customers already are.

12. Over 80% of driverless cars will be one-passenger vehicles.

Since 85% of cars on the road only have one person in them, and since one-person vehicles will be cheaper, it’s very likely that upwards of 80% of autonomous fleets will be designed around single passenger occupancy. Naturally larger vehicle can be summoned whenever necessary. It may be counter intuitive, but people will actually prefer to one-person cars.

13. Cities will lose over 50% of their current revenue streams.

When we combine the loss of sales tax, retail stores, income from traffic violations, gas tax, vehicle licensing, parking meters, and parking garages, the total loss of revenue to a city becomes a very large number. Keep in mind, cities will undoubtedly develop new forms of revenue but that will require considerable foresight and planning.

14. Driverless tech will likely trigger a city pension crisis.

Numerous cities have made overly generous long-term commitments to fund staff pensions, a commitment that will be especially hard to manage when revenues begin to drop. With increased longevity, most pension funds were never adequately funded in the first place. Since driverless tech will undermine many of our city’s existing revenue streams, the challenges they’re facing today will transition into a full-blown pension crisis for many of them in the future. There will be no easy solutions for bailing out these super expensive pension plans.

15. We will reach the peak demand for oil before 2040.

Once we reach peak demand for oil, stemming from a surge in wind, solar, and nuclear, prices will start to plummet. Driverless tech will hasten the shift to electric cars. There are many geopolitical implications that will accompany this change. Petroleum will continue to be valuable for making plastics and other materials, but will not be burned for energy at any scale. Many companies, countries, and investors have already started making plans for what comes next.

16. Location will no longer matter.

In the past, being in business was all about “location, location, location.” However, as the driverless world evolves, passengers will become much more involved in working, watching movies, and playing games throughout the commute. As a driver, we become very invested in the landmarks along the way, and understanding the context of our location. But once drivers become passengers, they will be paying far less attention to local landmarks. As a result, it will be far easier to just ask your car to take you to whatever store or business you want to go to, regardless of proximity to your current location. Perhaps a better way of thinking about this is that location will still matter, but it will matter differently.

12. Over 5 million acres of parking lots will soon become available for redevelopment.

Currently 14% of Los Angeles is dedicated to parking. We have an amazing amount of land dedicated to parking – over 5 million acres to be precise. Demand for parking will begin to dwindle over the coming decades and this property will be sold as prime real estate for redevelopment.

18. Owning a car will soon become a very expensive hobby.

Autonomous vehicles will cause car ownership to evolve from a necessity to a luxury, to an expensive hobby. As dealerships and gas stations begin to dwindle, the overall cost of owning and maintaining a car will begin to ratchet upwards. Once autonomous vehicles reach 20-50% of commuter traffic, the cost of traditional car ownership will skyrocket.

Entertainment options inside cars will grow exponentially.

19. Roughly 25% of today’s jobs will disappear as a result of autonomous vehicles.

Over the next 2-3 decades, driverless technologies will be either directly or indirectly responsible for the loss of 25% of all of today’s jobs. But that’s only part of the story. Virtually every aspect of society, in every country around the world, will be touched by driverless technologies, and the vast majority of it is destined to improve our global standard of living. Job losses will be offset by job creation. Businesses that disappear will be replaced by innovative new businesses built around the ingenious new capabilities autonomous vehicles provide.

20. The automobile insurance industry will dwindle to a fraction of its current size.

Total personal automobile insurance premiums in the U.S. stood at about $173 billion in 2018. According to KPMG, accidents will decline 80% by 2040 due to autonomous transportation. While the cost per accident may rise substantially because new cars and their parts are more expensive, once driverless tech hits its stride, the decline will be dramatic and result in sizable reductions in loss and premiums. More than 90% of accidents each year are caused by driver error.

21. The number of taxi and truck drivers will drop, eventually to zero.

In its place we will see many of the same people working at truck and transport command centers. Someone born today might not understand what a truck driver is or even understand why someone would do that job — much like people born in the last 30 years don’t understand why someone had ever been employed as a switchboard operator.

22. Lobbying efforts surrounding autonomous vehicles will get ugly.

The biggest losers in driverless tech will be insurance, banks, and auto dealerships and they will spend heavily to muck up the political playground for this emerging industry.

23. Driver’s licenses will start to dwindle as will the Department of Motor Vehicles in most states

. People will start using other forms of ID but biometrics and face recognition will pave the way for the inevitable digitization of all personal identification.

24. No more DUIs. Traffic tickets will dwindle and disappear altogether

along with traffic court, lawyers, DAs, and all the revenue streams they perpetuated. This will happen relatively soon since all driverless vehicles will operate at the correct speed and there will be fewer options for slipping between vehicles and racing down an open stretch. Speed junkies, for the most part will go away since few people will even care how fast they’re going.

25. Police departments will shrink dramatically.

With up to 80% of today’s police forces focused on traffic control, cops that survive the transition will soon have a far less visible presence and a substantially different daily routine.

26. Alcohol and cannabis consumption will rise.

Restaurants and bars will sell more because people will consume more, as they no longer need to consider how to get home and will be able to consume inside vehicles. Many self-driving vehicles will come equipped with their own mini-bars.

27. Tech companies will study every little detail inside each car.

Companies like Google and Facebook will accumulate data on everything related to customer movements and locations. Unlike GPS chips that only tell them where someone is at the moment, autonomous vehicle systems will know where people are going in real-time and how they’re preparing for what comes next.

28. Privacy mode for the inside of vehicles will be an upsell feature.

Privacy mode will be designed for those having business discussions, arguments, sex, affairs, doing illegal drugs, and much more. But it will come with heavy fines if the vehicle is somehow damaged or trashed during the blackout period.

As we enter the “driverless era,” the focus will shift to the passenger experience

Final Thoughts

My goal in writing this has been to spark your imagination about the dramatic changes that will soon take place.

Car designers today spend the vast majority of their time trying to optimize the driver experience. After all, the driver is the most important part of the ownership equation.

As we enter the “driverless era,” the focus will shift to the passenger experience. Very soon, cars with steering wheels will seem as outdated as dial telephones!

Fancy dashboards displaying dazzling amounts of information for the driver will become a thing of the past as riders fuss over on-board movies, music, and massage controls.

Some fleet owners will offer car experiences that are more conversational in nature, pairing socially compatible riders in a way to maximize conversations and improve the social environment. Others will stress the benefits of alone-time, offering a peaceful zen-like experience for those wishing to escape the hustle and bustle of work-life.

However, as we navigate our way towards a safer, more efficient society, we still have a few bumpy roads to go down before we see the light at the end of the tunnel.

The main purpose of intellectual property law is to encourage and protect human ingenuity.

For this reason, intellectual property has become a continually evolving form of public policy where the rights associated with human creativity necessarily have to change along with our “tools of creation.”

However, as we enter the age of artificial intelligence, we have moved from an era of change to an era of disruption, where we now face some challenging times ahead.

It occurred to me that we will soon be able to create 3D images of any person from online photos. AI systems will be able to scan online photos of any individual and use the two dimensional information to auto-generate three digital models.

Thinking through this, these 3D models can take the form of holograms, videos, mixed reality, animations, physical sculptures, and even future algorithms for human cloning.

Making a statue will be as simple as feeding the digital model into a 3D printer to produce a physical sculpture.

Over time these models will become more lifelike and can be inserted into a variety of scenes such as playing sports, fighting battles, or something gruesome like killing people or animals.

The potential for fake news is off the charts.

That’s right, any person will run the risk of having their life turned upside down by a set of compelling images that leave all remnants of truth far behind.

The art world is filled with colorful people who are often rewarded for pushing the limits and creating shock value to sell whatever they’re selling. This could become an enormously problematic issue.

Who owns the copyright of a photograph?

The wildlife photographer who snaps the photo can claim ownership when a website publishes the photo without his permission. Under U.S. law, the copyright of a photograph is the property of the person who presses the shutter on the camera — not the person who owns the camera, and not even the person in the photo.

Yet, you can’t use someone’s likeness for commercial purposes without their express permission. This means you can’t take a picture in a public place with recognizable faces and sell it to General Motors, Pizza Hut or a stock photo company. But you can sell them to news organizations or use them for art.

This naturally brings up questions about whether or not you actually own your own likeness, and can control your own legacy?

Do you own your likeness?

In the U.S. a person can be sued for using someone else’s name, likeness, or personal attributes without permission.

The right of publicity, often called personality rights, is the right of an individual to control the commercial use of his or her name, image, likeness, or other undeniable aspects of their identity. Since it’s considered a property right, it can survive the death of the individual.

However, as new technology comes into play, and images of ourselves become more pervasive, we run the risk of facing an entire new set of never-before-confronted intellectual property issues.

Here are the questions creative people will be asking:

If I alter the likeness by 10%-15%, will that be sufficient to claim it’s a non-descript person?
Will it be possible to create software that can certify that a likeness has been sufficiently altered to pass the test?

Unchartered Territory for Both AI and IP

At the forefront of this transition are a number of emerging technologies, and rest assured, I’m just scratching the surface of challenging issues ahead. The technologies listed below are just a few that come to mind, and yes there will be many more to come.

While many of the issues listed below are not specifically directed towards AI, the overall pervasiveness of future AI will make it a contributing factor.

Driverless Technologies

Within ten years it will be common to hale a driverless car on our smartphones, much like we do with Uber and Lyft today. But the data surrounding both the transaction and inside-the-car activities have great value.
1. Can autonomous car companies sell photos of occupants, announce when famous people will be arriving somewhere, or monitor if riders may be doing something illegal?
2. How much data surrounding the trip can car companies collect? (i.e. ages of occupants, music listened to on the trip, hair colors, eye colors, style of clothing, heart rates, and how many times riders use words like “totally” and “sweet”).
3. Will riders automatically waive their rights to avoid advertisements? Do they have the right to ride in an ad-free environment?
4. With competition coming on many fronts, how much of the “ride experience” will car companies be able to protect? Will they be able to patent, copyright, or trademark the level of privacy, its sound, texture, smell, taste, or harmonic vibration of the ride?

Future Search Engines

In the grand scheme of things, search engines are still a prehistoric technology. Quantum computing will soon enable us to define, test, and search for a variety of new physical and digital attributes. These include attributes like smells, tastes, barometric pressure, harmonic vibration, reflectivity, textures, and specific gravity.
5. When it comes to definable sensory creations like tastes and smells, will we soon be able to protect them with patents, trademarks, copyrights, or something else?

6. Can other definable attributes like harmonic vibration, reflectivity, and textures also be trademarked in a form similar to “sonic branding?”

7. How long will it be before we create “attribute scanners” to log our daily experiences in a way that will also make them searchable?

8. When will we see an artificial nose more accurate than a bloodhound? How long before someone creates the periodic table of smells?

Sensor Networks

Over a trillion sensors are predicted to be collecting and distributing information over the next decade.
9. Do we have the right to control, monitor, and delete data collected from our personal sensors? (i.e. When we buy sensor-infused clothing in the future, it may already come with a built-in data distribution network that we automatically agree to with the purchase.)
10. More data means more definition. Will we soon be able to trademark our signature personality traits like our dance moves, hand gestures, ear wiggle, or laugh?
11. Once we start tagging valuable objects, vehicles, and devices that we own, how will we prevent our “ownership network” from being hacked, monitored, or outright stolen from us?
12. What exactly will ownership mean in an era where physical products are replaced by digital ones and our ability to share, distribute, assign, and license are just a tiny fragment of the options available through our constantly morphing digital rights?

Internet of Things

As I like to say, the Internet of Things is all about “devices talking to devices, talking trash about other devices, spreading rumors and lies about other devices.” Naturally this leaves us with a few questions.
13. When we own a smart refrigerator, do our health and life insurance companies have the right to monitor our diets and feed the data into their latest actuarial tables?
14. If we use “mood-casters” to interface with the buildings around us, can the meta-data surrounding our attitudes and temperaments be scraped, used, and repurposed by building owners and neighboring occupants?
15. Will my IoT devices become searchable? Yes, being able to search the contents of my refrigerator while I’m at the grocery store may be convenient, but it also has the potential for being hi-jacked by marketing companies, headhunters, and political adversaries.
16. Does my IoT pot have the right to call my IoT kettle black?

3D Scanning & Printing

With changes happening almost on a minute-by-minute basis, the 3D printing industry is on the verge of becoming one of the largest industries on the planet.
17. Who owns the rights to our digitally scanned bodies? Who else can and will have access to them?
18. Will someone who wants to buy me a pair of hyper-personalized shoes as a present have access to my foot-scans? Will this type of permission also give access to other marketing companies?
19. When I grow older and 3D printed organs, body parts, and entire replacement bodies become available, will I be buying or licensing the replacement body parts? Can they be repossessed for lack of payment?
20. Having doctors monitor our replacement body parts remotely may sound convenient, but who will have access to the data? And will there be an off switch?

Contour Crafting

Created as a large-scale form of 3D printing, contour crafting is now viewed as a disruptive technology poised to revamp the entire construction industry.
21. What features in a printed house will be patentable? Printed cabinets? Printed insulation? Artistic walls? Printed solar roofs?
22. What tools will designers use to protect unique features such as lighting and audio configurations, elevator styles, sensor networks, and the operational characteristics of appliances?

Flying, Driving, Swimming, Crawling Drones

While flying drones are constantly in the news, drones are robotic vehicles with far more capabilities than simply flying. They can also roll along the ground, stick to the side of a building, float in a river, dive under water, jump onto a building, climb a tree, or attach themselves like parasites to the sides of trains, ships, and airplanes. Future drones will be designed with a wide range of complex capabilities, and these capabilities will dramatically change our understanding of privacy, personal space, and proximity-based rights.
23. Who owns information collected by drones, and who else will have access?
24. Does an open window somehow mean that it’s a public place and drones can fly in? Where do property lines begin and end? Where does personal space end and public space begin?
25. Will people have the right to “shoot down” or otherwise destroy unlicensed or “trespassing” drones?
26. What are the legal privacy barriers that will protect people from drones with cameras and audio scanning capabilities as well as drones equipped with a variety of other types of sensors? Should we have a Drone Bill of Rights?

Virtual & Augmented Reality

Both VR and AR are Internet-sized opportunities on the verge of exploding around us.
27. Do “real world” augmented reality game designers have the right to include the general public as unwitting participants in their games?
28. Who owns the “reaction data” in VR simulations? How a person reacts to specific situations can be incredibly valuable data.
29. Will VR experiences be patentable, copyrightable, or protectable in any way?
30. What is the proper term for a VR creation – a video, a game, a simulation, an experience, or something else?

Artificial Intelligence

With A.I. we stand on the brink of a technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another. Microsoft even claims to have breakthrough A.I. technology for reprogramming cells back to a healthy state, and has announced they will be able to cure cancer in less than 10 years.
31. Will AI systems replace our need for human drivers, musicians, and doctors?
32. Can we reprogram our cells to cure most major diseases as Microsoft and others have proposed?
33. Will we “buy” the cure or just “license” it? Can we “gift” it to others?
34. Can an A.I. “entity” be copyrighted, trademarked, licensed, or sold?

Final Thoughts

Thomas Edison had enough clout to get Nikola Tesla eliminated from most history books. How many other people has this happened to?

Will people in the future have their legacy destroyed by historical revisionists with thousands of new tools like VR, AR, life-distorting videos?

How do we manage our own legacy if everything about us can be changed after we die?

Since dead people make great scapegoats, how do we protect the luminaries and past giants in our fields from having their accomplishments raided and reattributed to the living? If you don’t think this will become a problem, you haven’t been paying attention.

Yes, blockchain may be a solution, but only if it can be implemented fast enough.

While we will likely have a bright future ahead, our challenges should never be underestimated.

Russian Translation

Coworking spaces like WeWork may soon have a new kid on the block to worry about.

Driverless technology will invariably open the door to a whole new era of non-commuting vehicles, and one of the earliest examples we’ll see will be the driverless mobile office.

If you can imagine having an “office” pull up in your driveway, somewhere in the range of an 8’ X 12’ space, or perhaps an 8’ X 24’ conference room, with dimmable windows, projectors, sound systems, 5G-enabled, with flexible, reconfigurable furniture that is perfect for both working alone and hosting meetings, you’ll get the picture.

Executives need only Wi-Fi in, plug in their calendars, and the entire day can be managed from their mobile office, picking up people for each new meeting, and dropping them off before the next meeting begins.

Rather than working from the isolation of home or a single office, mobile offices will add exotic new dimensions to every workday. But they can be far more than just offices.

Mobile offices can also be working laboratories, tattoo parlors, manufacturing operations, arbitration courts, zoning resolution stations, police command centers, mobile ERs, fertility clinics, or pawn shops. Some will be owned by businesses while others will be part of a fleet and leased on a per-use basis.

Most importantly, these vehicles can operate as moving billboards wrapped with giant branding and marketing messages emblazoned on every available surface.

Turning Every Day into a Mobile Work Day

New products require new approaches to doing business. Sometimes it’s a different way of approaching sales, branding, manufacturing, marketing, or finding new vendors. In each of these situations, businesses need to develop fresh thinking and form new relationships. What better way to tackle these new demands than to turn each day into a dynamic mobile experience where forward progress is not only a motto, but also a common way of doing business?

Here are seventeen scenarios designed to explode your thinking and help you reimagine your entire business strategy:

1. New Housing Development Office

A young couple has just put down a deposit for a semi custom home and your job is to show and upsell possible upgrades for the soon-to-be-constructed home. With a complete showroom filled with everything from countertops, to exterior rock and brick, and elaborate audio/visual displays, you pick up the couple, travel to the construction site, and accompany them to other homes under construction, allowing them to touch and feel the difference of every decision.

Will there be a driverless mobile cooking school in your future?

2. Cooking School

Every morning the cooking school travels around town picking up its students, with unique tastings, conversations, and learning moments happening in between each stop. Once everyone is in place, the experience starts with a stop at a local garden where fresh herbs and vegetables are picked and added to the ingredient list. The mobile kitchen is designed to make virtually any type of food and the on-board chef(s) are always quick to improvise and match the type of training to the audience they’re working with. And the ever-changing views outside will make it a fascinating experience to remember.

3. The Investment Pitch Office

Investors, sitting in distant offices surrounded by fellow investors, often lose perspective on the true nature of startups and the type of working laboratory needed for newbies to succeed. By forcing the investors to meet directly with the entrepreneurs on their home turf, they will have a far better appreciation for the time and effort being exerted by the startup team, and the nuanced “little things” that can make a huge difference in the overall success formula.

4. Speed Dating

When was the last time you stepped out of your house r local coffee shop to go on a speed date? Never, right? In the very near future, the cure for loneliness is only a few clicks away. And next-gen AI will connect you with people you may actually care about meeting. Each 5 minute speed date, where you are literally speeding around town during the encounter, can lead to as much or as little as you want to have happen.

5. The Click-on-Me Marketing Model

Over the next few years a large percentage of consumers will be wearing smart glasses. In this era, many forms of retail will transform into more of a performance art as location and real estate take a back seat to product models who spend their day trying to get people to “click and buy” whatever they’re pitching. People who are good at attracting attention will naturally be drawn to this line of work, as every new day will have them searching the next great location. As models, each of whom will become intimately attached to their products, will be constantly refining their approach, using various forms of music, percussion, dance, rhythmic chanting, mime, and comedic gesturing to gain both the trust and respect of their audiences they find themselves performing for. Naturally, they will learn new techniques from each other as they travel from one stop to the next.

6. The Experiential Classroom

For both kids and adults, the amount of learning we take away from any experience is directly proportional to the number of micro learning moments our mind is actively exposed to. When we switch from a static classroom to an ever-changing backdrop, our minds are naturally switched into a high level of alertness. However, the highest value learning happens when attentiveness, place, emotion, technique, and demonstration all intersect into one super memorable moment. While a mobile classroom does not instantly make all these things happen, it does improve the likelihood it will.

7. Group Coaching

As most coaches know, the value of their advise improves exponentially when a third party can directly validate a key point with a personal experience. In today’s world, where the irregular cadence of everyday business makes group coaching problematic, placing it into an AI-managed join-on-the-fly process, where every pickup and drop-off schedule can be synced to fit with your timetable, the true value of involvement will become far more spontaneous and potentially far more therapeutic as the best coaches learn to ride the wave of each and every transition.

8. Mobile Chiropractor Office

Doctors, dentists, and chiropractors all get bored being inside the same walls day-in and day-out. For chiropractors, making house calls may be the best marketing tool ever, especially for people who have severe mobility issues, or recent back issues. This could also be true for physical therapists, trainers/coaches, and massage therapists.

9. Mobile Retreat

As mobile offices and mobile events gain traction, we will also be reinventing other kinds of opportunities that are not intuitively obvious. Taking people out of their normal office setting, and grouping them with others, who they would not normally meet, has been gaining acceptance as a proven model for experiential learning. However, by adding a mobile component, where every destiny and learning experience becomes part of each day’s soon-to-be-revealed mystery, has the potential for adding excitement and involvement that is currently missing in today’s business retreats.

10. Mobile Dentistry

The idea of performing a root canal on a squeamish patient while traveling down a bumpy, pot-hole infested stretch of highway does not instill confidence in most would-be dental customers. But the actual dental work would be much more refined that that. Making stops at each new client, as a way of insuring a full schedule without the dreadful waiting room experience, and having the actual finely detailed dental work performed in a stationary vehicle, makes sense. But between those times the operation would be fully mobile.

11. Industrial Training

Every existing industry will be introducing new tools, techniques, software, procedures, and policies over the coming years, and managing the ongoing training and education side of the business will become far more challenging as the rate of change accelerates. For this reason a number of mobile training services will begin offering “we’ll-come-to-you” instruction and training packages designed specifically to match the needs of particular businesses.

12. 12-Step Meetings

Those who frequent a local 12-step meeting like AA, NA, MA, or GA can finally emerge from the basements and backrooms and feel like they’re reintegrating with society. And transportation issues will no longer be an acceptable excuse for not being there. In fact, a drive through the problem areas of a city may garner additional recruits and may make the groups themselves less introspective and more proactive.

13. Mobile Gaming Salon

In just a few years, the stereotypical basement-dwelling game fanatic will be a thing of the past. In addition, games themselves will transition from today’s couch potato button-pushing marathon to more of an aerobic workout. At the same time, the advent of mobile salons will open the door to location-specific gaming experiences that are tied to hyper-local cultures and the neighborhood people and street-level architecture that exemplify them. Mobile gaming will open the doors to radical new game designs, business models, tournament play, and entirely new entertainment styles.

14. Personalized Retail-Manufacturing Shop

As we move into the era of hyper-individualized products and services, we will begin to see a wide variety of both mobile retail and mobile manufacturing operations spring up. Whether its shoes, guitars, dinnerware, candles, sweaters, or smart home devices, customers will have the option of sorting through styles, materials, colors, and features before hitting the purchase button. Some items will require a body scan, others will need installation, and still others will involve training. But whatever the product or service demands, having a mobile team arrive in style will make you feel like you’re part of the process.

15. Group Therapy/Counseling Center

– 90% of what happens in life, happens from just showing up. And when the “showing up” part has been reduced to walking out your front door and stepping into a session, it’s hard to find a valid excuse to say “no.” Group therapy has long been the social “push” to both correct your thinking and adjust your approach to the issues you’re dealing with.

16. The Volunteer Center

If you’re the volunteering type, every day begins with you checking alert messages about possible topics or events where you can join forces with other like-minded volunteers to tackle the project of the day. As soon as you click “ok,” you will receive an ETA for the mobile volunteer office that will pick you up and whisk you off to the job site. But in this setting, you’ll be able to meet the other volunteers beforehand and learn about the challenges ahead before you arrive.

17. Mobile Daycare

Young people who have to wrestle through the demands of getting themselves and their kids ready each morning, before making the commute to a daycare center and then to work, know all too well the taxing nature of this morning ritual. However, if the “daycare comes to you,” suddenly the 8-10 phase changes you make each morning, suddenly seem far more doable. Mobile daycare also opens the door for more road trips and adventures for the kids. Childhood never seemed more exciting!

The options are as limitless as our imagination

Final Thoughts

The key thing to remember is that even though driverless technology will make our roads and highways operate far more efficiently, it doesn’t mean less traffic. In fact, just the opposite.

Autonomous vehicles will unleash new thinking for all kinds of non-commuting and utilitarian vehicles that currently don’t exist.

Naturally the true spectrum of opportunity will depend on pricing. But keep in mind, as the labor cost associated with driving disappears, and rather than spending a boatload on an expensive office in the high rent district, the mobile office may indeed be more affordable than you first think.

The original idea of having a traveling office was to give people slightly more control in their lives, and an ever-changing backdrop to lighten the tedium of business. With this arrangement, owners can run their business as many hours as they want, and simply park it when they’re done.

In the past, businesses had set hours, and storefront operations were very rigid and inflexible. But mobile businesses don’t require either the real estate investment or the staffing necessary to cover the hours the business community expects of them. Everything about mobile offices has a way altering traditional thinking.

Final Thoughts

As I’ve said many times, driverless technology will be the most disruptive technology in all history. And it will also come with it’s own complicated set of design issues.

Fleet privacy will become a huge issue. Is it ok to have cameras monitoring the inside of the car 24/7? Fleet owners will argue that it’s necessary to prevent vandalism and to know when the car is dirty. Riders will hate the idea of being spied on.

Business people, who would rather not deal with anything left behind by kids, pets, or the elderly will have the option of ordering higher-priced, but more business-friendly vehicles.

In fact, fleet owners will face constant challenges to have the right style and selection of vehicles to meet the ever-changing demands of their customer base.

In general, adoption rates will depend heavily upon pricing, which in turn will be determined by market forces and the overall level of competition between fleet owners.

Autonomous vehicles will pave the way for an exciting new wave of transportation, but it will take several iterations of change before we truly understand the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.

The night before my talk for the Texas Transportation forum in Austin, Texas, my wife and I were involved in a car accident. Since Uber and Lyft no longer operate in Austin, we were riding in the back of a Ride Austin vehicle.

With an oncoming car that erroneously turned in front of us at an intersection, and a few panic-filled seconds of stomping on brakes and bracing for impact, we ended up in a relatively low-impact head-on collision where no one was seriously injured.

It occurred to me later that a huge portion of today’s cars are designed around mitigating damage from accidents. Everything from seatbelts, to airbags, child car seats, headrests, bumpers, and headlights are all designed to improve safety and reduce the cost and liability of car accidents.

As a point of comparison, we don’t plan for accidents on elevators and escalators. There are no seat belts on elevators.

The logical next question is, how much of this goes away as we enter into the driverless car era?

Yes, it’ll be a messy transition period, and we will only see a relatively small amount of change while there are still human drivers on the roads. But once we develop fully automated transportation systems, will we still need all these safety features?

25 Shocking Predictions

Throughout this column I will be making a number of predictions about the coming driverless era, which will be followed by the age of fully autonomous vehicles.

Naturally this will require a level of trust in the technology that is still a ways off. However, the economic drivers behind rapid adoption are hard to ignore.

As with all predictions, there are a number of variables that could cause a far different outcome. For this reason, the true value of a prediction is in drawing your attention to the situation, and you reaching your own conclusions.

1. Life expectancy of autonomous vehicles will be less than 1 year

I’ve been doing some math on driverless cars and came to the startling conclusion that autonomous cars will wear out in as little as 9-10 months.

Yes, car speeds will be slower in the beginning, but within ten years as speeds increase and cars begin to average 60-70 mph on open freeways, a single car could easily average 1,000 miles a day.

Over a 10-month period, a single car could travel as much as 300,000 miles.

Cars today are only in use 4% of the day, less than an hour a day. An electric autonomous vehicle could be operating as much as 20 hours a day or 21 times as much as the average car today.

For an electric autonomous vehicle operating 24/7, that still leaves plenty of time for recharging, cleaning, and maintenance.

It’s too early to know what the actual life expectancy of these vehicles will be, but it’s a pretty safe assumption that it will be far less than the 11.5 years cars are averaging today.

2. One Autonomous Car will Replace 30 Traditional Cars

2028-2030 will be the years of peak messiness for the driverless car revolution. The number of autonomous vehicles will grow quickly but they will be intermingled with traditional driver-cars.

Drivers bring with them a hard-to-quantify human variable, and that’s what makes driving today such problem-riddled experience.

There are roughly 258 million registered cars in the U.S. and replacing them will be a long drawn out process. But here’s what most people don’t understand. One autonomous vehicle that we can be summoned from a local fleet will replace 30 traditional cars.

For a city of 2 million people, a fleet of 30,000 autonomous vehicles will displace 50% of peak commuter traffic.**

During off-peak times, 30,000 autonomous vehicles will handle virtually all other transportation needs. Peak traffic times that will be the hardest to manage.

3. Less than 4 million autonomous cars will replace 50% of all commuter traffic in the U.S.

With roughly 250 million people in the U.S. living in urban communities, 3.75 million autonomous vehicles will handle 50% of peak commuter traffic in the country.

That means 4 million autonomous vehicles will replace our need for half of all cars, or roughly 129 million vehicles.

With a projected sale of 17-18 million new vehicles annually in the U.S., a fleet of even 1 million autonomous vehicles will make a serious dent in traditional car sales.

4. Fleet owners will become the primary influencers on the design of new cars

The thinking of large fleet owners will dominate the autonomous car market. Their focus will be on vehicle costs, repair records, maintenance, cleaning expenses, and operational efficiencies.

In a competitive consumer marketplace they will also have to pay close attention to comfort, convenience, and the overall user experience.

AI-driven fleet management systems will be tasked with ensuring cars are in the right place at the right time to meet user demand. This type of fleet management software will take years of operational know-how to make it work efficiently.

5. Driverless cars will be electric vehicles

As battery life improves and recharging stations become more automated, the demand for electric vehicles will jump exponentially. However, large fleet owners will only choose electric cars if they are easier to maintain, more reliable, and cost efficient.

6. Electric vehicle range will exceed 1,000 miles per charge by 2027

Battery range for electric vehicles is improving. Even though Elon Musk has predicted a 600-mile range for Tesla cars in 2017, their latest models only get about half of that.

So far the primary drivers for extending electric vehicle distance has been a form of “range anxiety” among individual consumers. Once autonomous vehicles come into play, the need for far greater distances will be driven by fleet owners who will view “range” as a primary purchase consideration.

For this reason, we will see electric vehicles routinely passing 1,000 miles on a single charge within ten years.

7. Noise levels in cities will be cut in half

The shift to electric vehicles will dramatically change the sound of a city. This cannot be overstated. Rumbling engines, smelly exhaust clouds, and loud revving noises will all fade into distant memories.

8. 80% of driverless cars will be one-passenger vehicles

Since 76% of cars on the road only have one person in them, and since one-person vehicles will be cheaper, over 80% of autonomous fleets will be designed around single passenger occupancy.

9. 40% of sales tax will disappear

Roughly 40% of state and local sales tax comes from auto sales. With the current rules all cars in a fleet will be exempt from sales tax. Very likely new taxes will be created to replace these lost revenues.

10. Over 10% of retail businesses will disappear

Over 10% of today’s retail businesses are connected with cars. As personal ownership of cars begins to shrink, we will see a rapid decline in gas stations, car washes, oil change businesses, detail shops, tire shops, brake shops, emissions testing, alignment shops, auto repair, body shops, tow trucks, glass repair, transmission repair, auto part stores, rental car agencies, and auto insurance offices. Dealerships themselves will also disappear.

11. Police departments will shrink by 80%

In most U.S. cities, 80% of police departments are dedicated to traffic control. Without DUI fines, speeding tickets, and parking fees, most police departments will be trimmed to a bare minimum.

12. U.S. will lose over $35 billion/year from gas taxes

In 2014, federal fuel taxes amounted to $35.2 billion. This number will undoubtedly increase over the coming years until we reach a point of peak gas usage somewhere in the mid-late 2020s.

13. New York City will lose over $2 billion per year in traffic fines

The big apple collected a whopping $1.9 billion from traffic violations in 2015, and this number has been steadily increasing over time.

14. 41% of airport revenues will disappear

According to the Airports Council International-North America, 41% of airport revenue in the U.S. comes from parking and ground transportation services. Virtually all of this will disappear over the coming years.

15. Cities will lose over 50% of their revenue

When we combine the loss of sales tax, retail stores, income from traffic violations, gas tax, vehicle licensing, parking meters, and parking garages, the total loss of revenue to a city becomes a very large number.

Keep in mind, what I’m referring to is their current revenue streams. They will undoubtedly develop new ones but that will require considerable foresight and planning.

16. Healthcare industry will lose over $500 billion per year

The National Safety Council estimates 38,300 people were killed and 4.4 million injured on U.S. roads in 2015.

Driverless cars have the potential to push those numbers nearly to zero. If we consider how low the accident/injury rate is for the airline industry, that’s roughly what we should expect for autonomous vehicles.

If we multiply the average cost of repairing a person after a traffic injury, say $10,000, times the number of injuries, 4.4 million, we end up with a potential drop of $440 billion in payments to hospitals and the healthcare industry.

For 2015, the CDC estimates that 38,300 people killed resulted in $62 billion in medical and work loss costs in addition to the immeasurable burden on the victims’ families and friends.

That’s over half a trillion dollars, in the U.S. alone, that simply goes away.

17. There will be 700,000 fewer stolen vehicles per year

In 2015, 707,758 motor vehicles were reported stolen. Of that total, 24% were stolen in California, and over 14% were Hondas.

Autonomous cars will not be “stealable.”

18. Auto insurance industry will lose over $150 billion a year

Total personal automobile insurance premiums in the U.S. stood at about $186 billion in 2014.

According to KPMG, accidents will decline 80% by 2040 due to safer cars and autonomous transportation. But if driverless adoption happens sooner, the 80% decline will come into play much earlier.

While the cost per accident may rise substantially because new cars and their parts are more expensive, once driverless tech hits it’s stride, the decline will be dramatic and result in sizable reductions in loss and premiums. More than 90% of accidents each year are caused by driver error.

19. Location no longer matters

In the past, being in business was all about “location, location, location.” However, as the driverless world evolves, passengers will become much more involved in working, watching movies, and playing games throughout the commute.

As a driver, we become very invested in the landmarks along the way, and understanding the context of our location. But once drivers transition to passengers, they will be paying far less attention to local landmarks. As a result, it will be far easier to just ask your car to take you to whatever store or business you want to go to, regardless of proximity to your current location.

Perhaps a better way of thinking about this is that location will still matter, but it will matter differently.

20. Remodeling garages in people’s homes will soon become a thriving industry

As car ownership declines, garages will no longer be needed as a place to park your car.

A nicely remodeled garage, set up as a separate living unit, could add as much as $1,500-$2,000 a month in rent payments, as an AirBNB rental, to the average homeowner’s income.

21. Over 5 million acres of parking lots will suddenly come available for redevelopment

14% of Los Angeles is currently used for parking.

We have an amazing amount of land dedicated to parking – over 5 million acres to be precise. Demand for parking will begin to dwindle over the coming decades and this property will be sold as prime real estate for redevelopment.

22. Overall transportation costs will shrink by 50%

According to AAA 2015 study, the average person spends $8,698 a year on their car that averages 15,000 miles per year. That works out to $725 a month. For autonomous vehicles, projected annual spending on transportation will be far less – $4,200 (.28/mile * 15,000 miles) or $350/month.

Over time, the 28 cents per mile we used in our calculation will drop as fleet owners develop more efficient systems.

23. Car ownership will soon become a very expensive hobby

Autonomous vehicles will cause car ownership to evolve from a necessity to a luxury.

As dealerships and gas stations begin to dwindle, the overall cost of owning and maintaining a car will begin to ratchet upwards. Once autonomous vehicles reach 50% of commuter traffic, the cost of traditional car ownership will skyrocket.

24. Overcrowding will officially come to an end

One thing that symbolizes overcrowding more than anything else is traffic. Once traffic flows smoothly, people will begin to regain control of their lives and our sense of feeling overcrowded will begin to disappear.

25. Driverless technologies will cause 1 in 4 jobs to disappear

Over the next 2-3 decades, driverless technologies will be either directly or indirectly responsible for the loss of 25% of all of today’s jobs.

But that’s only part of the story.

Virtually every aspect of society, in every country around the world, will be touched by driverless technologies, and the vast majority of it is destined to improve our global standard of living.

Job losses will be offset by job creation. Businesses that disappear will be replaced by innovative new businesses built around the ingenious new capabilities autonomous vehicles provide.

Final Thoughts

In the future, our cars will know far more about us than we know about them. Each new vehicle will instantly know how to adjust the seats, what music we like, our favorite TV shows and where we left off in the latest series. It will also understand where we’re going, letting those we’re meeting with know when we will arrive.

As transportation becomes faster, cheaper, and easier, we will simply do more of it. We’re moving towards a very fluid society, and all this movement will seem natural and effortless.

It’s important to understand that driverless technology will not only be applied to cars, but also tractors, trucks, ships, lawnmowers, forklifts, water taxis, snowplows, submarines, drones, trains, and even airplanes. It will soon touch the lives of every person on planet earth.

Still, this is not a one-size-fits-all solution.

Just as wealthy people today enjoy the status of driving a more expensive car, not all driverless vehicles will serve the same utilitarian function. Richer people will pay to “arrive in style,” and will expect to have premier access to buildings. In much the same way hotels often greet their elite guests with teams of people waiting on their arrival, retail stores will find unusual ways to greet their most prominent customers and make them feel welcome.

If technology progresses the way I’ve predicted, we are on the verge of an explosive transformation.

As always, please take a few moments to consider the implications of these changes and let me know your thoughts.

By Futurist Thomas Frey

Author of “Epiphany Z – 8 Radical Visions for Transforming Your Future“

• ** – 2 million population X 45% who commute to work = 900,000 total X 9.1% during peak times = 81,900 commuters between peak time of 7:30-7:59 am
• ** – 81,900 commuters X 76% who travel alone = 62,244 vehicles
• ** – 81,900 commuters X 24% who carpool = 19,656/2 = 9,828 carpoolers
• ** – 62,244 + 9,828 = 72,072 commuting vehicles
• ** – 72,072 commuting vehicles X 84% (average commute 25.4 minutes or 84% of the 30 minute timespan) = 60,540 cars on the road during peak commute

When it comes to innovation it’s always hard to point to that exact moment when an invention, contribution, or individual caused the course of history to change.

But there’s something about the right combination of ideas, technology, and personalities that creates a new force of nature.

Most of it is driven by unsung heroes, slaving over a project or detail that virtually no one will ever know about, forsaking family and friends, working past the point of exhaustion, putting their own creativity to the test, for an accomplishment that can neither be explained or demonstrated.

But somehow it makes a difference.

It makes a difference to them and the next unsung hero who gets handed the same spark-of-ingenuity and is tasked with moving the innovation needle another millimeter along the path of progress.

That’s what happened in 1852 when Elisha Otis invented the safety elevator, an elevator that automatically comes to a halt if the hoisting rope broke. This one breakthrough opened the door for high-rise building to be erected all over the world.

That’s also what happened in 1950 when Frank McNamara and Ralph Schneider devised a way of using a small cardboard card to pay their bill at a restaurant. This insignificant transaction is what launched Diners Club and paved the way for today’s massive credit card industry.

It happened again in 1990 when Tim Berners-Lee, sitting in his laboratory in CERN Switzerland, developed HTML, URI, and HTTP, some of the critical pieces for launching the World Wide Web.

However, each of these turning points in history were built on the work of hundreds of people, and thousands of minor accomplishments, leading up to the point of their contribution.

Once the Internet was formed, the network itself became a massive platform upon which millions of new innovations could spring to life. As a networking platform, every new application can be hung like ornaments on a Christmas tree, to add additional capabilities.

In a connected digital environment, innovation is parsed into far smaller pieces, enabling even more people to contribute.

In 2007, the introduction of the iPhone paved the way for a massive app-building community that has made smartphones an essential part of everyday living.

Today we are witnessing the convergence of technologies that are forming several new platforms, each with the potential to grow exponentially into an Internet-sized opportunity.

Meet the New Kids on the Block

Most people are aware of these technologies, having heard the buzz in the news media, but few are actually viewing them as massive growth engines with the same explosive potential as the Internet.

Many of these started long before we ever heard of the Internet, but the Internet is what’s given birth to a host of new turbo-charged offspring.

Over the coming years we will hear about things like cross-platform connectedness, interoperability, and operating system wars. But in the end everything is connected. We’re moving from a connected world to a super-connected world, and we’re just getting started.

Here’s a look at the new kids on the block.

1.) Trillion-Sensor Network

When Janusz Bryzek, VP of Fairchild Semiconductor first presented the idea of a trillion sensor summit, the prospects of growing and managing that size of sensor network seemed like a far off dream.

However, the mobile market is a bullet train for the sensor industry. With the number of sensors doubling every 4 years in smartphones, reaching upwards of 80 per phone by 2024, and the sale of smartphones projected to reach 2.5 billion annually, this one industry alone could account for more than 200 billion sensors per year in less than eight years.

As the sensors grow ever cheaper, and the network grows ever larger, the more data we as individuals, professionals, companies and governments will collect and analyze to make ever more intelligent decisions.

Sensors that measure heat, light, moisture, movement and thousands of other attributes will shrink to dust-sized particles and be imbedded in coating like paint and powder coating, planted with our crops, sewn into our clothing, and 3D printed into products to add tiny bits of information to virtually ever surface around us.

More importantly, the sensor industry is paving the way for the Internet of Things.

2.) Internet of Things

One day soon, we will wake up and wonder how we ever survived in a world of ‘dumb’ disconnected things. Our homes, including our pantries, closets and shoe racks, our offices, factories and vehicles will be full of connected devices.

The World Economic Forum estimates that the number of connected devices will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21.6% over the next four years from 22.9 billion in 2016 to a headline-grabbing 50.1 billion by 2020 – equivalent to almost five connected devices for every person on the planet.

But we’re just getting started. As an industry, the Internet of Things will work closely with the 3D printing industry to make all of our products smart-products.

3.) 3D Printing

Exponential growth in 3D printing is being fueled by improvements in scanning, materials, and multi-material print capabilities.

3D printing already appeals to artists, architects, inventors and other creatives who need an easy method of prototyping or modeling.

The reach of 3D printers extends far beyond that. While the printing process today is slow, tomorrow’s machines will be designed as full production models where virtually anything can be produced cheaply and in large quantities eliminating the need for overseas manufacturing. 3D printing will support a diverse range of other applications including medicine, fashion, and even food, if you are into artistically designed highly processed meals.

The industry will continue developing. On the consumer front, lower prices will make 3D printers more attractive and improvements in quality, speed and safety will further the cause.

4.) Contour Crafting

Many people tend to dismiss contour crafting as the grown up version of 3D printing for building houses, but it ends up being a completely different industry with vastly different enablers and growth curves.

Next generation contour crafting will be far more than just printing the structure. Multi-material machines will print the wiring and plumbing in the walls, cabinets and fixtures in the kitchen, and toilets and sinks in the bathroom.

We will no longer have the need for flat walls. Every wall can be an artistic centerpiece.

Our very definition of what a house, condo, or office is will begin to change once we begin to explore the full potential of this technology.

Architects will go crazy with their ability to create freeform designs impossible to build with today’s construction methods.

Over the coming months we’ll see headlines lauding the worlds first “printed” post office, hospital, school, hotel, and baseball stadium.

5.) Virtual and Augmented Reality

References to VR go back over 80 years, and AR about 50 years, but the term “virtual reality” started making its way into modern culture in the 1980s due to Jaron Lanier, one of the modern pioneers of the field.

However, it wasn’t until Facebook bought Oculus in March 2014 that the entire world started taking notice.

While VR itself is a technology platform, it has taken many years for all the necessary pieces to come together to create the exponential explosion that is about to happen. The enabling tech convergence is being driven by our growing bandwidths, networks, and VR equipment that is both reasonably priced and sufficiently high resolution to create a mass consumer market.

VR and AR applications are about to touch every industry today including architecture, gaming, education, physical therapy, entertainment, sports, communications, and much more.

6.) Flying Drones

When I wrote my column on 192 Future Uses for Flying Drones in 2014, it was intended to spark people’s imagination.

At the time I hadn’t really given much thought to the driving, swimming, climbing, rolling, jumping, surfing, and digging drones that have begun to dot the emerging technology landscape.

Any combination of movement and automation can be used to develop of whole new range of capabilities for next generation robotic vehicles.

By 2030 the drone industry will have splintered into multiple new industries with abilities impossible to imagine from today’s vantage point.

7.) Driverless Technologies

Imagine stepping out of your house 15 years from now and using your smartphone to summon a driverless vehicle. Within 2-3 minutes a driverless vehicle arrives and whisks you off to work, school, shopping, or wherever you want to go.

A form of on-demand transportation is already happening with companies like Uber and Lyft. If we eliminate the driver, costs will plummet.

Once the technology is perfected, on-demand transportation companies will crop up in most metropolitan areas with large fleets of vehicles poised to meet consumer demand.

There’s a significant difference between a driverless car and a fully autonomous vehicle. We already have a number of vehicles on the road today with driverless features, but that’s only a small step towards the no-steering-wheel type of driverless car many are imagining.

As we move further into the fully autonomous car era, we also need to understand the distinction between “user-operated” and “completely driverless” vehicles. Because of regulatory and insurance issues, user-operated fully autonomous cars will come to market within the next five years, while complete autonomous driverless autos will remain further off.

As I’ve said many times, driverless cars will change transportation more dramatically than the invention of the automobile itself.

8.) Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence has a magical element to it because we still don’t know where its capabilities end.

As example, AI music is coming. We won’t need musician to write new music, AI can do it all by itself.

Very soon we’ll have all-AI music stations on the radio and AI background music playing at parties. ASCAP can try to collect all the royalties they want, but they’ll soon be out of business.

In much the same way, computers have beaten chess, Jeopardy, and Alpha Go champions, AI will soon out-write writers, out-art artists, and out-produce movie producers.

That doesn’t mean we’ll all rush to buy AI produced products, but at this point we don’t know.

It does mean that AI will be entering our lives in thousands of different ways, and it will eliminate tons of jobs along the way.

Final Thoughts

So if these eight technologies are driving the next wave of innovation, what comes after them?

Rest assured there are a large number of equally transformative technologies already percolating their way to the top. Some may even grow faster and more explosively than the list above.

Keep an eye on things like blockchain technologies, synthetic biology, quantum computing, super materials (graphene, stanene), tube transportation (ET3 & Hyperloop), bioengineering (CRISPR), DNA sequencing, chatbots, neuroengineering, quantum computing, atmospheric energy harvesting, near-earth satellite tech (project Loon, Aquila, Titan), robotics, neural user interfaces, and mass energy storage.

The next generation of transformative technologies may be exponentially larger, possible 32 or 64 of them happening simultaneously.

Going back to the Christmas tree analogy, tiny improvements will be hung like ornaments on each of the new platforms, causing them to scale far faster than ever before.

If you think we’re going to run out of work anytime soon, think again. We’re about to enter a period of severe talent shortages. But since, future jobs will bear little resemblance to our jobs today, only the super adaptable need apply.

By Futurist Thomas Frey

Author of Epiphany Z – 8 Radical Visions Transforming Your Future

In what year will the number of cars in the world reach its peak and auto sales overall begin to decline?

For most, it may be surprising to realize we’re already there in the U.S. Growing data shows many wealthy economies have already hit “peak car,” a point of market saturation characterized by an unprecedented deceleration in the growth of car ownership, total miles driven, and annual sales.

Vehicle traffic grew at a staggering rate worldwide for decades. But that all changed in 2007. Some refer to it as the perfect storm with the combination of economic collapse, digital revolution, and major shifts in urban lifestyles.

Several alternative transportation startups also began in that timeframe led by the likes of Zipcar, Uber, Lyft, and SideCar. This was followed by the emergence of connected cars, growing electric vehicle markets, driverless cars, declining birthrates, and increasingly congested highways in virtually every major city in the world.

Mounting indicators are painting a clear picture of an automobile industry only a few years away from reaching the top of the bell curve in the rest of the world as well.

Even though the continent of Africa with its high birthrates and under developed infrastructure is a long ways from reaching its automotive peak, today’s wholesale shift in transportation thinking has caused alarm bells to ring throughout the entire automotive industry.

So how will this transformation play out?

In just a decade or so, owning a car may well be relegated to the hobbyist, luxury market, much like owning airplanes or horses today.

Relying on a personal vehicle, with personal responsibility for finance charges, licensing, taxes, repair costs, insurance, gas, oil changes, cleaning, and complying with 10,000 laws about parking, speeding, noise, pollution, stop signs, stop lights, and construction zones will soon be a thing of the past.

In fact, owning a car has become a painful experience. From the salespeople who sell you the car, to the finance guys in the background, to the cops watching your every move, it’s easy for car buyers to feel like tiny rodents with swarms of vultures circling overhead.

With a history of scam artists and con men leaving their indelible mark, the auto sales industry has begun a slow march towards is being regulated out of existence.

People have put up with it because they didn’t have any other good options. But new options are already here and more are on their way.

Shifting from “Just-in-Case” to “Just-in-Time”

On a recent trip to Australia I was shown a house that was owned by Elton John. He owned it for 12 years but only showed up there once.

In the past, rich people were always defined by how much they owned. Real estate, expensive cars, vacation homes, and fancy jewelry have long been the symbols of greatness.

But today’s young people think about it differently. Our physical trappings weigh us down. They occupy our mind, cloud our judgment, and consume our time. Our possessions become our obsessions.

No, the world of physical ownership will not abruptly end over night. But the speed with which we begin to migrate in that direction is about to pick up.

We own a car just-in-case we need to go somewhere. But what if there were other options?

Today 144 million Americans spend an average of 52 minutes a day in their car, most of it spent commuting to and from work. In the future, we will not show up for work just-in-case we need to be there. Rather, we will figure out schemes for being there just-in-time, either virtually or physically, as the needs of business dictate.

On-Demand Transportation

If the average non-productive time spent in cars were eliminated, how else could commuters spend their extra 52 minutes a day?

Imagine stepping out of your house 10 years from now and using your smartphone to summon a driverless vehicle. Within 2-3 minutes a driverless vehicle arrives and whisks you off to work, school, shopping, or wherever you want to go.

On-demand transportation is already happening with companies like Uber and Lyft. If we eliminate the driver, costs will plummet.

According to Lux Research, by 2030, the self-driving car market will grow to over $87 billion.

Once the technology is perfected, on-demand transportation companies will crop up in most metropolitan areas with large fleets of vehicles poised to meet consumer demand.

It’s at this point where car companies will begin changing their business model, and rather than charging for each vehicle sold, they will partner with fleet managers and charge for every mile the car is driven.

The New Industry Model

Today, auto manufacturers are incentivized to sell cars, and the more cars the better. Well, it’s better for them but not better for the cities and countries that have to deal with the deluge of cars.

Car companies will continue to sell cars until cities become dysfunctional, and we are seeing this play out all over the world. Most municipalities are ill equipped to build the necessary infrastructure to accommodate the rapidly growing number of cars.

My sense is that in an on-demand transportation world, car companies will be paid for every mile they’re driven, so they will begin focusing more on durable vehicles, capable of traveling a million miles or more. Fewer vehicles, that are capable of lasting far longer, will equate to a much more profitable car company.

At the same time, fleet operators faced with purchasing 10,000 vehicles at a time will be a vastly different consumer than today’s personal-use car buyer. Operational efficiency and repair records will be the primary considerations, and with large numbers of vehicles involved in each purchase, they will push had for the lowest possible price.

Since most people will no longer own their own cars, far less attention will be paid to things like style, color, branding, and status.

The losers in this emerging world will be insurance and finance companies, and all the dealerships dependent on sales. At the same time, traffic cops and traffic courts will go away along with all the lawyers, judges, parking lots, junk yards, taxi and limo services, and thousands of other tiny businesses supporting our current human-centric driving world.

Final Thoughts

We will very likely reach “peak car” for the world sometime over the next ten years.

Even though the auto industry has been glacially slow at adapting to change in the past, the on-demand transportation shift will happen quickly, meaning years instead of decades.

Policy-makers will find it far easier to regulate a few large fleet companies than millions of individuals. Noise, pollution, drunken driving, car related deaths and injuries will all become a thing of the past.

City planners will begin working on an entirely new era of infrastructure as driverless highways and driverless mass transit will require far different standards.

Most consumers will welcome the change as it frees up their time and money for more important uses.

As always, there are many things that can go wrong along the way. Hackers causing cars to crash into each other, unions preventing some states from allowing driverless cars, protests by people losing their jobs, or driverless cars being used in some terrorist plots are all potential threats to this scenario.

The path of progress is never smooth, so expect many things to go wrong along the way.

However, I see “peak car” as a very positive development. But I’d love to hear what you think. Is this a good thing? Will we all be using driverless cars within the coming decade? Will “peak car” happen in the next ten years, and if not, why not?