Photo: iRobot
Not many people care about the innermost thoughts of a Google executive. But the company is like a giant think tank and director of engineering Ray Kurzweil is one of the smartest fish.
Considering that Google is one of the main backers of the semi-controversial idea that cars need to drive themselves, the fact that Kurzweil says they are "inevitable" doesn't impress us. However, the words of this inventor and futurist have struck a chord, explaining how the iRobot Audi fits in our future.
Kurzweil opened the 2015 SAE World Congress with a speech that touched on many subjects, according to Automotive News. Everything is linked to the predictable path taken by "the price, performance and capacity of information technology", he says.
For example, the exec believes that by 2022, a $1,000 computer will be able to “emulate all the computation of the brain” and even sooner than that, we might print clothes we like from home, without ever having to go shopping.
2022 – that's when most car companies that are developing autonomous or semi-autonomous cars will be ready to launch their innovations. So if you can imagine printing clothes, why not a self-driving car?
The advantages are immense. Kurzweil believes that not only will they help reduce the number of people killed in accidents, but they’ll also free us up to do something else instead of driving during the commute.
If virtual reality will be indistinguishable from the reality-reality in coming decades, we could play out our F1 or WRC racing fantasies during rush hour or catch up on lost Game of Thrones episodes.
The iPhone6 probably has a few thousand times more computing power than the Apollo 11 rocket that took humans to the moon. Around 2030, nanocomputers will prolong our lives and allow us to go online without needing devices.
Again, if we can accept being virtually immortal within the next generation, why can't we let the cars do all the boring stuff for us?
Kurzweil opened the 2015 SAE World Congress with a speech that touched on many subjects, according to Automotive News. Everything is linked to the predictable path taken by "the price, performance and capacity of information technology", he says.
For example, the exec believes that by 2022, a $1,000 computer will be able to “emulate all the computation of the brain” and even sooner than that, we might print clothes we like from home, without ever having to go shopping.
2022 – that's when most car companies that are developing autonomous or semi-autonomous cars will be ready to launch their innovations. So if you can imagine printing clothes, why not a self-driving car?
The advantages are immense. Kurzweil believes that not only will they help reduce the number of people killed in accidents, but they’ll also free us up to do something else instead of driving during the commute.
If virtual reality will be indistinguishable from the reality-reality in coming decades, we could play out our F1 or WRC racing fantasies during rush hour or catch up on lost Game of Thrones episodes.
The iPhone6 probably has a few thousand times more computing power than the Apollo 11 rocket that took humans to the moon. Around 2030, nanocomputers will prolong our lives and allow us to go online without needing devices.
Again, if we can accept being virtually immortal within the next generation, why can't we let the cars do all the boring stuff for us?
Google News