F U T U R E
PREDICTIONS
DR ROBERT GOLDMAN
n 1998, Kodak had
170,000 employees
and sold 85% of all
photo paper worldwide.
Within just a few years,
their business model
disappeared and they went
bankrupt. What happened
to Kodak will happen in a
lot of industries in the next
10 years - and most people
don't see it coming. Did
you think in 1998 that 3
years later you would
never take pictures on
paper film again? Yet
digital cameras were
invented in 1975. The first
ones only had 10,000
pixels, but followed
Moore's law. So as with all
exponential technologies,
it was a disappointment for
a long time, before it
became way superior and
got mainstream in only a
few short years. It will now
happen with Artificial
Intelligence, health,
autonomous and electric
cars, education, 3D
printing, agriculture and
jobs. Welcome to the 4th
Industrial Revolution.
Welcome to the
Exponential Age.
Software will disrupt
most traditional industries
in the next 5-10 years. Uber
is just a software tool, they
don't own any cars, and are
now the biggest taxi
I
04
company in the world.
Airbnb is now the biggest
hotel company in the
world, although they don't
own any properties.
Computers become
exponentially better in
understanding the world.
This year, a computer beat
the best Go player in the
world, 10 years earlier
than expected. In the US,
young lawyers already
don't get jobs. Because of
IBM Watson, you can get
legal advice (so far for
more or less basic stuff)
within seconds, with 90%
accuracy compared with
70% accuracy when done
by humans. So if you study
law, stop immediately.
There will be 90% fewer
lawyers in the future, only
specialists will remain.
Watson already helps
nurses diagnosing cancer,
4 time more accurate than
human nurses. Facebook
now has a pattern
recognition software that
can recognize faces better
than humans. By 2030,
computers will become
more intelligent than
humans.
In 2018 the first self-
driving cars will appear for
the public. Around 2020,
the complete industry will
start to be disrupted. You
don't want to own a car
anymore. You will call a car
with your phone, it will
show up at your location
and drive you to your
destination. You will not
need to park it, you only
pay for the driven distance
and can be productive
while driving. Our kids will
never get a driver's license
and will never own a car. It
will change the cities,
because we will need
90-95% fewer cars for
that. We can transform
former parking space into
parks. 1.2 million people
die each year in car
accidents worldwide. We
now have one accident
every 100,000 km, with
autonomous driving that
will drop to one accident in
10 million km. That will
save a million lives each
year.
Most car companies
may become bankrupt.
Traditional car companies
try the evolutionary
approach and just build a
better car, while tech
companies (Tesla, Apple,
Google) will do the
revolutionary approach
and build a computer on
wheels. I spoke to a lot of
engineers from
Volkswagen and Audi; they
are completely terrified of
Tesla.
Insurance companies