Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

by Max Tegmark

Although AI can save many lives in manufacturing, it can potentially save even more in transportation. Car accidents alone took over 1.2 million lives in 2015, and aircraft, train and boat accidents together killed thousands more. In the United States, with its high safety standards, motor vehicle accidents killed about 35,000 people last year—seven times more than all industrial accidents combined.21 When we had a panel discussion about this in Austin, Texas, at the 2016 annual meeting of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, the Israeli computer scientist Moshe Vardi got quite emotional about it and argued that not only could AI reduce road fatalities, but it must: “It’s a moral imperative!” he exclaimed. Because almost all car crashes are caused by human error, it’s widely believed that AI-powered self-driving cars can eliminate at least 90% of road deaths, and this optimism is fueling great progress toward actually getting self-driving cars out on the roads. Elon Musk envisions that future self-driving cars will not only be safer, but will also earn money for their owners while they’re not needed, by competing with Uber and Lyft.