Annotations for Speaker: Nick

My name is Nick Bilton. I'm a special correspondent for Vanity Fair.

The thing that I've been pretty obsessed with lately is actually not fake news, but it's automation and artificial intelligence and driverless cars. Because it's going to have a larger effect on society than any technology that I think has ever been created in the history of mankind. I know that's kind of a bold statement, but ...

But you've got to imagine that—you know, that there will be in the next 10 years, 20 to 50 million jobs that will just vanish to automation. You've got, you know, a million truckers that will lose their jobs, the—but it's not—we think about, like, automation and driverless cars, and we think about the fact that they are going to—the people that just drive the cars, like the taxi drivers and the truckers, are gonna lose their jobs.

What we don't realize is that there are entire industries that are built around just cars. So for example, if you are not driving the car, why do you need insurance? There's no parking tickets because your driverless car knows where it can and cannot park and goes and finds a spot and moves and so on. If there are truckers that are no longer using rest stops because driverless cars don't have to stop and pee or take a nap, then all of those little rest stops all across America are affected. People aren't stopping to use the restrooms. They're not buying burgers. They're not staying in these hotels, and so on and so forth.

And then if you look at driverless cars to a next level, the whole concept of what a car is is going to change. So for example, right now a car has five seats and a wheel, but if I'm not driving, what's the point of having five seats and a wheel? You could imagine that you take different cars, so maybe when I was on my way here to this interview, I wanted to work out, so I called a driverless gym car. Or I have a meeting out in Santa Monica after this, and it's an hour, so I call a movie car to watch a movie on the way out there. Or office car, and I pick up someone else and we have a meeting on the way.

And all of these things are gonna happen not in a vacuum, but simultaneously. This, you know—pizza delivery drivers are gonna be replaced by robots that will actually cook your pizza on the way to your house in a little box and then deliver it. And so kind of a little bit of a long-winded answer, but I truly do think that—that it's gonna have a massive, massive effect on society.

Am I stressing you guys out? Are you—are you having heart palpitations over there?

My name is Nick Bilton. I'm a special correspondent for Vanity Fair.

The thing that I've been pretty obsessed with lately is actually not fake news, but it's automation and artificial intelligence and driverless cars. Because it's going to have a larger effect on society than any technology that I think has ever been created in the history of mankind. I know that's kind of a bold statement, but ...

But you've got to imagine that—you know, that there will be in the next 10 years, 20 to 50 million jobs that will just vanish to automation. You've got, you know, a million truckers that will lose their jobs, the—but it's not—we think about, like, automation and driverless cars, and we think about the fact that they are going to—the people that just drive the cars, like the taxi drivers and the truckers, are gonna lose their jobs.

What we don't realize is that there are entire industries that are built around just cars. So for example, if you are not driving the car, why do you need insurance? There's no parking tickets because your driverless car knows where it can and cannot park and goes and finds a spot and moves and so on. If there are truckers that are no longer using rest stops because driverless cars don't have to stop and pee or take a nap, then all of those little rest stops all across America are affected. People aren't stopping to use the restrooms. They're not buying burgers. They're not staying in these hotels, and so on and so forth.

And then if you look at driverless cars to a next level, the whole concept of what a car is is going to change. So for example, right now a car has five seats and a wheel, but if I'm not driving, what's the point of having five seats and a wheel? You could imagine that you take different cars, so maybe when I was on my way here to this interview, I wanted to work out, so I called a driverless gym car. Or I have a meeting out in Santa Monica after this, and it's an hour, so I call a movie car to watch a movie on the way out there. Or office car, and I pick up someone else and we have a meeting on the way.

And all of these things are gonna happen not in a vacuum, but simultaneously. This, you know—pizza delivery drivers are gonna be replaced by robots that will actually cook your pizza on the way to your house in a little box and then deliver it. And so kind of a little bit of a long-winded answer, but I truly do think that—that it's gonna have a massive, massive effect on society.

Am I stressing you guys out? Are you—are you having heart palpitations over there?