Exponential technologies like AI, robotics, and computing are advancing rapidly and will transform many aspects of life over the next 5 years. Hardware is getting cheaper and more capable through advances like quantum computing. Software is benefiting from large datasets, open source projects, and new algorithms. This will drive progress in areas like autonomous vehicles, drones, personalized healthcare through technologies like CRISPR and 3D bioprinting. Realizing the benefits of these technologies will require addressing challenges around safety and aligning advanced AI systems with human values and priorities.

1. It’s Hard to
Stand Still on a
Moving Train:
A Review of the Most Important
Technologies Over the Next 5 Years
Presented by John Low
@Lowcus

2. Where are We Today?
Exponential Technology

3. “Right now, a Masai warrior on a mobile
phone in the middle of Kenya has better
mobile communications than the president
did 25 years ago. If he’s on a smart phone
using Google, he has access to more
information than the U.S. president did just
15 years ago.” —Peter Diamandis

4. Visitors to the pope
(source: Business Insider)

5. Exponential growth: How many times would you
need to fold a piece of paper in order to reach the
moon?

6. Historically, about every 10 to 15 years — major new cycles begin that
completely reshape the computing landscape.
- Chris Dixon

7. Exponential Growth
PC sales per year (thousands)
Chris Dixon: What’s Next in Computing?

8. Exponential Growth
Worldwide internet users
Chris Dixon: What’s Next in Computing?

9. Exponential Growth
Worldwide smartphone sales per year (millions)
Chris Dixon: What’s Next in Computing?

10. Computers are Getting Smaller
Chris Dixon: What’s Next in Computing?

11. Computers are Getting Cheaper
Chris Dixon: What’s Next in Computing?

12. The Apollo Guidance
Computer: 4100
integrated circuits,
each of which was a 3
input gate for a total of
12,300 transistors –
having its performance
clock in at 41.6
instructions per
second.

13. An iPhone 6 has 3.36
billion instructions per
second, which is 120
million times faster
than the guidance
computer that put Neil
Armstrong and Buzz
Aldrin on the moon.

14. Hardware
Cheap, Capable

15. Hardware - Cheap
Raspberry Pi - $5, 1 GHz
Computer on a Chip

16. Cheap Parallel Computing

17. Hardware - Capable:
Quantum Computing

18. https://youtu.be/w_-_H9eBte8

19. Software
Algorithms, Large Data Sets

20. Deep Learning
2012 Google project that used a giant cluster of
computers to learn to identify cats in YouTube
videos

21. Software: ImageNet Challenge

22. Data Sets, Software, Documentation - Open Sourced

23. Small teams
building state-of-
the-art AI

24. GOOGLE PHOTOS

25. Open source, DIY AI
https://youtu.be/_wXHR-lad-Q

26. Fact follows fiction
https://youtu.be/YvRb9jZ9wFk

27. Homebrew Self Driving Car
https://youtu.be/KTrgRYa2wbI

28. Autonomous Drone
https://youtu.be/rYhPDn48-Sg

29. The pattern of 10–15 year computing cycles has ended
and mobile is the final era.

30. Evolution of Interaction
Touch to Voice

31. Touch 1.0
University of Calgary, “History of Computer Interfaces” (Saul Greenberg)

32. Touch 2.0
University of Calgary, “History of Computer Interfaces” (Saul Greenberg)

33. Touch 3.0
University of Calgary, “History of Computer Interfaces” (Saul Greenberg)

34. Voice
University of Calgary, “History of Computer Interfaces” (Saul Greenberg)

35. Alexa

36. Artificial Intelligence

37. Photo Credit: Emmanuel Coupe
Massive Data Collection
Increased Computing PowerNew Algorithms
Artificial Intelligence

38. https://youtu.be/LcL3eP0Hfy4

39. Narrow AI, (Or weak AI), is designed to perform a narrow task (e.g. only facial
recognition or only internet searches or only driving a car). However, the long-
term goal of many researchers is to create general AI, (AGI or strong
AI). While narrow AI may outperform humans at whatever its specific task is, like
playing chess or solving equations, AGI would outperform humans at nearly every
cognitive task.
Narrow AI vs. General AI

40. Potential Scenarios
The AI is programmed to do something devastating:
• Autonomous weapons
• AI arms race
• To avoid being thwarted by the enemy, these weapons would
be designed to be extremely difficult to simply “turn off”. This risk is
one that’s present even with narrow AI, but grows as levels of AI
intelligence and autonomy increase

41. AI Weapons

42. Potential Scenarios
The AI is programmed to do something beneficial, but it develops a
destructive method for achieving its goal:
• Fail to fully align the AI’s goals with ours
• If a super-intelligent system is tasked with an ambitious
geoengineering project, it might wreak havoc with our ecosystem as a
side effect, and view human attempts to stop it as a threat to be met.

43. Malevolence vs. Competence
…You’re probably not an evil ant-hater who steps on ants out of malice,
but if you’re in charge of a hydroelectric green energy project and
there’s an anthill in the region to be flooded, too bad for the ants. A key
goal of AI safety research is to never place humanity in the position of
those ants.
STEPHEN Hawking Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything)

44. Self Driving Cars
The World Health Organization estimates that 1.25 million
people die from car-related injuries per year. Half of the deaths
are pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorcyclists hit by cars. Cars
are the leading cause of death for people ages 15–29 years old.

45. Automotive Industry Golden Age, Take 2?
What if a Car:
• Is part of a network that provides a commuting service that come to you?
• Is the most advanced computing device you use?
• In effect, is an on-demand cash generator, boosted by car/ride sharing?
• Gives you safe driving pay-backs from your insurer?
• Is safer, due to automation/reduced human error?
• Drives itself? Parks itself?
• Makes you want to commute?
• Makes you more productive?
KPMG Internet Trends 2016

46. Autonomous Drones
Zipline uses drones to deliver medicine and blood
to remote areas of Rwanda and is bringing the
program to remote communities in Maryland,
Nevada, and Washington.

47. IBM's Watson cracks medical mystery with life-
saving diagnosis for patient who baffled doctors
The super-computer powered by artificial intelligence prescribes
leukemia treatment within minutes.
- International Business Times

48. https://youtu.be/ymUFadN_MO4

49. https://youtu.be/vk9xuB2deIk

50. Healthcare

51. Healthcare
Todd Coleman: Bioelectronic wearables that monitor blood pressure, heart rate, EKG and EEG testing

52. bio technology: CRISPR
https://youtu.be/ZImVkl8QTW8

53. 3D bio printing
https://youtu.be/ECK2JbVM9ng

54. Virtual Reality

56. New era of story telling and learning
https://youtu.be/TrsT5W9DpkQ

57. Summary Points
• We are at an unparalleled point in human history
• Significant changes are happening in how we will work, play, and
engage with one another
• We will need to resolve new questions in ethics and philosophy
• There are opportunities and experiences that we can only begin to
think about and that will be the everyday for our children and
grandchildren