The global economy is undergoing the largest technological transformation in history.
Ø Blockchain Technology
Ø Genome Sequencing
Ø Robotics
Ø Energy Storage
Ø Artificial Intelligence
“Big Ideas”:
1. Deep Learning
2. Digital Wallets
3. Cryptocurrencies
4. Battery Cost Tipping Points
5. Autonomous Taxi Networks
6. Next Gen DNA Sequencing
7. CRISPR For Human Therapeutics
8. Collaborative Robots
9. 3D Printing For End-Use Parts
Deep Learning Is Software That Writes Itself
Deep learning is a form of artificial intelligence inspired by the human brain. With deep learning, machines don’t need a programmer to tell them what to do. Instead, machines use data to train themselves. Every industry will be transformed by deep learning. Deep learning is not ‘written’ but ‘trained’. Humans gather data and create a learning framework. The system learns the right behaviors automatically. Deep learning improves with more data and often exceeds human performance.
Deep Learning Is the Third Wave of “Software Eating the World”
1. The first wave of software on PCs disrupted a handful of industries.
2. The Internet wave expanded the reach of software beyond the computer industry, creating new tech giants.
3. Deep learning is the third wave of software eating the world. It expands the reach of software into massive industries like healthcare, transportation, and manufacturing.
Deep Learning Eats Retail
Amazon Go uses cameras and sensors which feed into deep learning software to recognize shoppers, to understand when they pick up items or put them back, and to allow them to leave the store without checking out at a cash register.
Deep Learning Eats Microprocessors
“AI Accelerators” are used in servers to speed up workloads.
While the US Created the Internet Economy, China Could Spearhead the AI Economy.
Digital Wallets-Mobile Bank Branches
Digital wallets are transforming more than payments. They are becoming gateways for financial services such as wealth management, insurance, banking, and personal finance. Digital Wallets could upend traditional banks within five years. Digital wallets are scaling quickly relative to traditional banks. By the end of 2018, Venmo will have the fourth largest customer base, trailing only Wells Fargo, Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase. Square’s Cash App also will be in the top 10.
Cryptocurrencies- Storing and Transferring Value
Throughout history, we have had to rely on trusted intermediaries to store and transfer value. With the launch of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto proposed an alternative financial system, one decentralized and free from top-down control. Cryptocurrencies have the potential to shift the course of monetary history and eliminate inefficiencies.
We Are Witnessing the Rise of an Alternative Financial System.
Bitcoin – with an uppercase B – refers to the software that facilitates the transfer and custody of bitcoin – with a lowercase b – the cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin’s blockchain is a distributed digital ledger and database that records the flow of its native currency, bitcoin, and provides the foundation for cryptonetworks, the networks powering cryptocurrencies.
Assurance Is Key to Money
Fiat currencies and the assurance they provide depend on the jurisdictions that issue them.
Cryptonetworks such as Bitcoin provide assurance without relying on intermediaries.
The Lightning Network is a second layer payment protocol with multi-directional channels, enabling fast and ‘fee-less’ transactions.
“Bitcoinization” is defined as a Bitcoin-induced currency demonetization. With hyperinflation in emerging markets like Venezuela, Iran, and Zimbabwe, the demand for cryptocurrencies could increase suddenly and significantly.
Attributes: Durable, Portable, Fungible, Verifiable, Censorship Resistant, Divisible, Established, Scarce
Battery Cost Tipping Points
Batteries have entered a virtuous cycle: cost of goods is falling, stimulating unit demand growth which, in turn, is pushing batteries further down the cost curve. Electric vehicle sales will rise from roughly 1.3 million in 2018 to more than 26 million in 2023. As a result, battery costs should drop to a point where utility-scale energy storage becomes attractive, enabling a multitude of new applications.
Lithium-ion Battery Costs Are Dropping Relentlessly
Battery Cost Declines Are Enabling New Applications
• Low cost energy storage is enabling electric vehicles, stationary energy storage, and form factor diversification.
• Electric Vehicles and Utility Energy Storage as the main drivers of battery demand.
All Vehicles Are Likely to Run on Electric Drivetrains
• If all vehicles go electric, the annual demand for batteries should top 4,000 GWh, more than 20 times current production levels.
• EVs probably will be the most important determinant of battery demand, though their unit sales may not top those of electric scooters/bikes, and their battery packs will be smaller than those of electric semi trucks.
EVs Should be Cheaper Than Comparable Gas-Powered Cars by 2022
• Battery costs should continue to drop, pushing EV prices below gas-powered vehicles in the early 2020s. • In 2025 EVs should be competitive with gas powered cars at every price point, unleashing tremendous demand.
Utility-Scale Energy Storage Should Become Competitive
The Addressable Market for Utility-Scale Energy Storage Is $800 Billion.
Autonomous Taxi Networks
We expect fully autonomous vehicles to be available commercially before 2020, enabling the rise and rapid growth of autonomous taxi networks. These networks should decrease the cost and inconvenience of point-to-point travel.
Transportation Should Become More Affordable, at scale, autonomous taxis will cost consumers $0.26 cents per mile (in 2016 it`s $0.70), spurring widespread adoption.
Autonomous Driving Is An Extremely Challenging Problem to Solve
Travel Could Go Autonomous Sooner Than Most Expect, The Cost of Moving People and Goods Is Declining Dramatically Across All Forms of Transportation.
Autonomous Taxis Will Cause More Congestion, But Will Lower Car Sales
Autonomous Taxis Should Curtail Both Oil Demand and Insurance Premiums
Next Generation DNA Sequencing
NGS is a high-speed, high-throughput methodology to detect the base pair sequence of DNA and RNA samples that combines novel biochemistry as well as optical and computing technologies. Next-generation DNA sequencing is the driving force behind the genomic revolution. DNA sequencing costs are dropping dramatically. Since 2003 the cost to sequence a whole human genome has dropped from nearly $3 billion to less than $1,000, leveraging advances in biochemistry and computation. As costs continue to drop, sequencing could become the clinical standard of care, introducing more science and knowledge to decision-making in health, agriculture, disease, and drug discovery.
Hereditary Disease Screening
CRISPR: GENOME-EDITING- For Human Therapeutics
CRISPR is a powerful DNA editing tool that should be able to delete, replace or repair genes easily, inexpensively, and precisely. We believe CRISPR is the most promising way to cure diseases -- from sickle cell anemia to cystic fibrosis to pediatric blindness to cancer. CRISPR genome-editing should shift the health care system from treating symptoms to curing disease.
CRISPR Gene-Editing Will Revolutionize Genomic Medicine
CRISPR Is Enabling Next-Generation CAR-T Targeting Cancer
Collaborative Robots
Robots are increasing their footprint and creating jobs. Collaborative robots (cobots) are designed to work along side humans and are retrained easily, adding to labor productivity.
Collaborative robot costs are lower than those of traditional industrial robots and leverage the power of deep learning. All robots will be collaborative in the long run.
Robot Costs Are Dropping
Deep learning applied to robotics is making the previously impossible, possible.
3D Printing for End-Use Parts
3D printing is a form of additive manufacturing that builds objects layer-by-layer instead of removing material from a larger block or using a mold. As a result, 3D printing collapses the time between design and production, shifts power to designers, and creates products with both radically new architectures and less waste, at a fraction of the cost of traditional manufacturing. 3D printing will revolutionize manufacturing. 3D Printing Is in Its Infancy, Is Penetrating the Aerospace & Aviation Industry
Range of Benefits
· Shortens design-to-production time
· Shifts power to designers
· Creates products with less waste
· Enables radically new architectures
· Reduces the cost of manufacturing significantly
· Creates machine learning-generated architectures
Biometric Data And The Rise Of Digital Dictatorship
Is humanity doomed? Are we one of the last generations of homo sapiens — soon to be supplanted by engineered cyberbeings, with a distant semblance to their creators (us)?
Historian and international best-selling author Yuval Noah Harari presented his view of the future at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Harari wrote Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind and also Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow.
Harari painted a very gloomy — but possible — view of the future, based on his thesis that we are now in our third grand revolution: the control of data, following the control of land (Agrarian Revolution) and the control of machinery (Industrial Revolution). The point of no return, Harari contends, will happen when technology will be able to extract high-precision biometric data from people and report back to a centralized decision-making control system, owned by governments or by corporations — or both. By biometric, he means your pulse, pressure, sweat composition, dilation of your pupils, etc.: kind of a lie-detector on steroids.