Uber Becoming a Robotics Company According to CEO

Travis Kalanick, CEO and co-founder of Uber spoke at the World Government Summit in Dubai and declared that the popular ride-sharing company is “at the beginning of becoming a robotics company” as it embraces the impending take over of autonomous vehicles. The company has been investing heavily in autonomous vehicles and has partnered up with Daimler to bring it to reality sooner. Aside from tapping those who can bring the hardware to life, they have also sought after talented individuals who share their vision of the future of urban transportation, bringing NASA scientist Mark Moore to direct their Uber Elevate VTOL flying car project.

Kalanick spoke further about how the future will look and how it is closer than it seems: “Imagine now a car that is delivering food but doesn’t have a driver. How do you get the food? You could come down and get it but if you have three kids … you want somebody to bring it up. And at some point there is going to be a humanoid that crawls up your stairs .. and hands you your pizza,” It sounds like something out of science fiction, but Kalanick delivered his speech with sincerity.

Kalanick also adds that it is not just robotics, but even artificial intelligence will play a role: “But when the car doesn’t have a driver who do I talk to? I’m going to talk to some AI agent or what they call a chatbot. I’m going to talk to an AI to get connected to that car, It sounds futuristic and sci-fi but that’s where the world is going,” he concluded, estimating a five to ten year time frame for this reality to transpire. If anyone can make it happen, a company such as Uber valued at more than $60B certainly can.

Aside from talking about artificial intelligence chatbots and humanoids delivering fresh hot pizza, Kalanick also spoke about the benefits of self-driving cars to the environment and in alleviating traffic congestion.