Artificial Intelligence won’t replace people, but add to their capabilities: Sebastian Thrun, CEO Kitty Hawk

Twenty years from now we will speak all languages, recognise all faces, remember conversations and diseases that kill people today but will be detected much earlier now, thanks to Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered systems. In 50 years, it might be possible children born then will live to at least 200 years; and climate change will come to a halt! The world will be completely powered by alternate sources of energy instead of burning fossil fuels. Such romantic, tech assisted, science-fiction-become-reality kind of vision is what Silicon Valley deep tech scientist Sebastian Thrun believes will be true.

In fact, Thrun, 51, who co-founded and runs three startups simultaneously, is working towards some of these goals himself. Udacity is for online learning, offering nano-degrees (short courses) in areas including drones and machine learning; Kitty Hawk Corp is making electric planes and flying cars while AI powered Cresta.ai is trying to automate repetitive jobs. Thrun worked at and led Google’s self-driving