>> [MUSIC PLAYING]
>> JAMES WHITTAKER: What's next?
We are going to spend the next hour asking, and answering,
that question, what's next?
Because as students, you all spend a lot of time studying the past.
You spend a lot of time mastering the present.
>> But asking, and answering, the question, what's next,
is what's going to make you successful.
Because if you can't answer this question, you end up being left behind.
>> Companies that can't answer this question get left behind.
Individuals get left behind.
Asking, and answering, the question, what's next,
is probably the most important skill that you will develop in your career.
>> You only have to get it right once, and you're done.
So we are going to ask this question.
But in order to get there we're going to study the past where people have
gotten that answer right and wrong.
>> In the 1980s, the big thing was hardware.
In the 1980s, companies bought room-sized computers
and hired rooms full of people to program them.
And in the late '80s, things began to change.
>> The companies that weren't asking what's next, IBM, DAK, Wang, Sperry, are gone.
The companies that did ask, and answer, what's next,
were the companies that survived and thrived into the '90s.
And of course, what's next, was software.
>> IBM got that answer wrong, and they declined.
Microsoft got that answer right, and they owned the next decade.
>> Now, this decade, this word decade is a hint.
This industry runs in 10 year cycles that are as reliable as Moore's law is.
10 years is something being born, and then growing into maturity,
and being the big thing, and then going away rapidly, only
to be replaced by the next big thing.
>> And of course the next big thing in the '90s
was software, mostly the operating system.
And the killer app was productivity, both office productivity
and programmer productivity.
>> The company that owns that killer app for what's next,
ends up being the company that dominates.
And of course, that company in the 1990s was Microsoft.
>> Now 10 years later, Microsoft failed to ask, and answer,
the question what's next, because the world changes reliably every 10 years.
And of course, what's next, was the web and the killer app
was information retrieval.
And Google had the best answer for what was next.
>> Now, in 2007, everybody thought the cloud was next.
Amazon comes out with Amazon Web Services
and everybody was betting on the cloud.
That's what's next.
But see, there's a problem with that.
It was too new.
No invention really becomes important until it's 10 years old.
>> So in 2017, the cloud's going to become really important,
but it's still not what's next.
I was a Google employee in 2009 when we discovered the hard way, what was next.
Do you know?
>> So you've got to get used to asking and answering this question,
or you're never going to get good at it.
And if you get good at it, you're going to be relevant.
>> Can I hold the questions for the end?
Thank you.
You're going to be good at it.
Or you were going to guess?
What?
>> SPEAKER 1: Mobile
>> JAMES WHITTAKER: Of course.
Mobile.
Now, the way we discovered this, is Larry Page
sent out an email that said, hey, we have a big problem.
And he called a few of us together.
And he showed us the big problem.
>> He showed us the data.
And the data was frightening.
The data caused us to have a near death experience.
The data showed that users that use the iPhone-- the iPhone
had been out for two years in 2009-- people who
use the iPhone don't use browsers.
They don't search the web.
They use apps that search the web for them.
>> Imagine our fright as Google.
We made-- at the time we made 97% of our income
on sponsored links and ads viewed through a web browser.
If this iPhone thing was going to be big,
if this smartphone thing, if mobile was going to be big, we had a huge problem.
97% of our income gone.
Crazy.
>> What did they do about it?
A couple of interesting moves that Google made in 2009 that you all
should be aware of, because if you don't start studying this stuff,
you're not going to be able to get good at asking and answering this question.
>> Do you remember back before 2009, if you Googled what time is
it in, say, Columbia, what's your city?
>> SPEAKER 2: [INAUDIBLE].
>> JAMES WHITTAKER: I can't even say that.
>> SPEAKER 2: Bogota.
>> JAMES WHITTAKER: Bogota, Colombia.
What did you get?
You got 10 blue links about Bogota, Colombia, and time.
All of a sudden in 2009, you got the time in Bogota, Colombia.
>> Make search more app-like was Larry Page's marching order, and we did.
Now that's a big deal for Google, because every time Google delivers
an answer, they don't get paid for it.
They have to deliver a link that might be bought and paid for, or an ad,
in order to make money.
This was devastating to the business.
Second thing they did is they moved the A-team from Search to Android.
And that's probably why Marissa Mayer left the company eventually,
because that was a backup plan, just in case this is important.
But when we looked at this-- at Google, we looked at this--
and not only were people using apps, they were right to use apps.
>> You understand, apps are a better way to search the web.
Your app searches for you.
>> You're from Brazil.
You're into soccer.
What's a better way to get soccer scores?
Install a soccer app that specializes in soccer-- oh, football, sorry--
that specializes in football?
Or search the web that tries to generalize everything?
It's the app, right?
>> If you're a foodie, what's the best thing to do?
Get an app that specializes in all the information about food?
Or search the web through a browser that is a generalist?
>> If you're a science nerd, the science app
is going to outperform the web every single time.
Our life flashed before our eyes.
>> But then, why, why did the iPhone win?
Why?
What was it about the iPhone that made it special?
The BlackBerry did everything an iPhone would do.
Windows CE did everything iOS would do.
>> SPEAKER 3: Apple is a company you can trust because they
value the privacy of their customers.
JAMES WHITTAKER: Nope.
Apple has a lot of privacy data.
Why?
All those other phones, the BlackBerry, Windows CE, PalmPilot, they all
did everything that those other ones did.
What was it?
>> SPEAKER 4: Performance.
>> JAMES WHITTAKER: No.
SPEAKER 5: Good design?
JAMES WHITTAKER: No.
The App Store.
If you wanted to get an app on any other machine, any other handheld device,
before the iPhone, how did you get that app?
You had to go to the web.
You had to know where it was. www.whereinthehellismyapp.com.
And every single one of those websites had a completely different download
experience, completely different.
>> Users couldn't navigate it.
No one ever installed apps on those devices.
You couldn't update them.
>> And Steve Jobs came along and said, hey developers.
I'm going to put your app where customers can actually find it.
How does that sound?
Really?
You mean I can write code and it'll be used?
Wow.
That's awesome.
>> And it was third party developers that made that platform what it is.
The App Store was the killer app.
>> Now see, this is a hint.
Start watching for these gap.
Start watching for these holes.
From hardware to software, there was a hole that was filled.
We can't program all these machines individually.
One operating system to rule them all worked.
The web.
>> We no longer have to distribute media.
We no longer have to update software and ship it out on disk.
We can just push it through the web.
This is important.
And the App Store solved the biggest problem in mobile.
And if it wasn't for the App Store, it wouldn't have worked.
Right, because it drew developers.
And developers made the platform what it is.
>> I'm going to take questions at the end, is that OK?
Or I'm never going to get through this.
>> So what's next?
What's the 2020s?
>> SPEAKER 6: Nanocomputers?
JAMES WHITTAKER: We're going to get to that.
Close.
>> Now, here's what we're going to do.
And I want to teach you this because I think
this is the way to discover the future.
There was a bunch of gaps, a whole bunch of gaps.
And you've got to get used to finding them.
>> Every time your machines let you down.
Every time you think, why did I have to click five times to get this?
Why is this functionality not there?
That's a missing link.
>> That's a gap that you can step in and fill,
but only if you're watching for them.
Only if you look at the holes in the existing technology as opportunity
instead, of something that pisses you off.
>> So what's next?
Here's what we're going to do.
We're going to take a scenario, and we're going to chuck it in 2020.
All right?
>> We're just going to take a user scenario and we're
going to throw it into the future and see what happens.
Have you ever seen this movie?
The best movie ever, right?
World War Z.
>> It's the best movie ever for two reasons.
First, it's got zombies.
And zombies are real, right?
Not like that bullshit vampire stuff we had to put up with a few years ago.
Vampires are made up.
They're not real, they never will be.
But they were kind of sexy, so we watched them anyhow.
>> But zombies, people, zombies are real.
We can mathematically define this virus.
It's just a matter of time.
It's like your civic duty to watch every single one of these movies.
So that I don't have to kill you during the apocalypse.
>> Second reason it's the best movie ever is because it's got Brad Pitt in it.
It's like zombie movie meets date night, and there we were.
I'm going, oh, zombies.
And she's sitting next to me and she says, Oh Brad Pitt.
Somebody told her about the shirtless scene and she couldn't wait.
>> But then something strange happened, my date pulls out her phone
and begins to share screen time.
She's like, oh Brad Pitt, add something on-- oh, Brad Pitt.
And I'm thinking, what's going on here?
What part of shirtless Brad Pitt does she not understand?
>> And then, it got worse.
She taps me on the knee and said, I'll be right back.
And she walks out of the theater during this most perfect movie.
I'm stunned.
I'm flabbergasted.
I'm coming up with break up lines, man.
This is crazy.
>> Finally, she comes back, she sits down.
She's gone two, three minutes.
And she's in a huff, right, she's clearly hurrying.
And I'm waiting for it, right.
Waiting for it.
Come on.
Say it.
You missed part of the movie.
Say it.
>> And she didn't say it.
She didn't say, what happened?
What did I miss?
So I thought, all right, I'll be proactive.
So I said, hey, you didn't miss anything.
And she said, I know.
>> Because she has an app that tells her when to pee at the movies.
There is an app for that.
Someone has watched every single minute of every single movie,
and they curated it all.
Right?
>> Oh, there's an action sequence you don't want to miss.
Don't pee during that one.
New character, don't pee during that one.
But here's four minutes, right in the middle, nothing really happens.
Go take a leak.
>> Now I ask you all, how many of you all go to the movies?
Just raise your hand if you're a moviegoer.
I think it's safe to say we're all moviegoers.
How many of you all have this app?
One person.
I love it.
I do too.
Small bladder people.
>> Look at this.
This is a gap.
Here is-- $1.98.
Right?
Your $0.99, my $0.99, and yet all of you all are potential customers.
>> This is called the application discoverability problem.
And it is the biggest technical problem.
It's taking down the App Store.
The App Store solved a huge problem.
You couldn't find apps on the web, put them all in the store,
now you can find them.
Aha.
You can't find them again.
>> That is a big world changing solution.
So how should this work?
Let's cast this problem into the future.
How should this technology solve this problem?
It should be that I'm sitting in the movies, and I think, oh I've got to go.
And I say, oh I don't know, Cortana, I have to pee.
Now, what does Cortana have to do to help me?
>> First, Cortana has to figure out what I'm doing.
Where is my user?
OK.
No problem.
Lat/long pair.
Easy to do.
Built in functionality to the phone.
So now, Cortana knows exactly where I am.
Where is that?
Looks up an address.
Maps that lat/long pair to an address.
Easy.
Built in functionality on the map application
that is already on my phone.
No apps, yet.
>> And then, next, she's got to think, OK what is he doing here at this location?
Microsoft Research has a patent for geolocating you
off the face of the earth.
We know you're on the second floor of that building.
Bing has every single floor plan in most major cities, across the world,
as data.
OK.
>> You're in theater number four.
Let's see, now I can go look up on the web what's playing in theater number
four right now.
Because I know he's watching movie, he hasn't moved it in 30 minutes.
Cortana knows exactly what I'm doing.
>> And in fact, Cortana, probably when I say, Cortana I have to pee,
she's probably going to know, right?
Because the last time she geolocated me in a bathroom was two hours ago.
She's been living in my pocket for two years.
She has my mean time to bladder evacuation data down, right?
>> She's going to say, yes, James, I know.
I saw you buy that beer on the way in, just wait a few minutes, I'll vibrate
and then you can go do your thing and not miss any part of this movie.
>> Now what happened there?
There was no app involved in that.
We actually have all of the pieces to solve this problem, right now.
So what can we infer about the future based on this?
There are several things we can confer about the future.
>> First is our technology doesn't have to go to the web anymore.
We don't have to go to the web anymore.
Our technology takes us there.
The web is no longer a destination, it's simply a data source.
>> The movie times are up there.
The pee times are in the cloud.
They're actually sitting in Azure.
All that data is already there.
The world is beginning to turn into data.
Our devices are beginning to process and calculate intent
almost better than we can.
>> Secondly, Search.
My machine searched the web.
Do you know in 2015 something really special happened.
Now I'm not talking about bots, I'm talking about machines.
>> Machines on the web originated and consumed more searches
than humans for the first time ever.
In 2014, it was still a human dominated web.
2015 it's a machine-- machines are equal.
2016, 2017, by 2020, the amount of human generated and human consumed traffic
is going to be minuscule.
Our machines are going to be consuming the web for us.
>> And then, finally apps.
Where's the app in this?
I don't need the app.
The app is a noun.
I only need the pee times, I don't need all the trappings of it.
Give me the answer and I'm happy.
>> Why are apps nouns?
So you pay for them.
We're going to talk about monetization at the end,
because making money gets kind of scary in the future.
But we're going to talk about it, because it's important.
>> Apps have turned into verbs.
Right?
My technology discerns my intent, realizes I need something.
It's in the cloud.
It's on the web.
Crack the app open, bring out the answer,
put it on my device just in case I need it.
>> All of a sudden, a lot of the things that we do are no longer human
generated.
The machines are beginning to take over.
So you said nanotechnology, I'm just going to generalize it to machines,
but yes, a lot of them are going to be very, very small.
>> So Microsoft, my boss came to me summer of 2014, and he's like dude,
HR tells me you haven't taken a vacation in four years.
Go on vacation.
>> And so I Binged it what this vacation thing was.
And apparently, vacation is something that people who don't like their jobs
do to get away from their jobs.
And that kind of pissed me off, right?
I don't want a vacation.
So I decided, I want to write code.
And so I thought this whole internet of things thing sounded stupid, right?
Nest a thermostat.
You can control it.
And it's better, some way, because there's a machine doing it.
>> No, it's not.
Not in my house.
I am a Seattle tree hugger.
That thing stays off.
Put on a sweater and kiss my ass.
Or the lights.
I've got this light program on my phone.
I can do my burglar alarm.
It's harder to do the app than it is to just go over and turn
the light on or turn the light off.
>> So I had this whole-- I call bullshit on the internet of things kind of feeling.
So I thought, that's what I'll do I'll investigate this internet of things.
>> I'll put a machine on the internet of things that deserves to be there.
A machine that's got something to say.
A machine that's difficult for me to manage on my own,
and I could use some robots to help me.
And so I put my hot tub on the internet of things.
>> So Step 1 was my vision, because I always like to vision
how these things are going to work.
My vision was that Amazon drone would fly over full of hot tub chemicals.
And my hot tub would see it coming, and open its lid automatically.
And we'd just shoot the chemicals right in the-- so I thought,
OK first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to open and close
the lid automatically.
And that was actually quite easy.
A radio frequency controller on the motor for my hot-- easy, easy.
I mean seriously, two hours.
Most of it was just hooking stuff up.
Four or five lines of code and I'm done.
And now I've got a little Windows phone app I can open and close the lid.
>> Second, was-- actually second was not any of that-- second was I thought,
I don't want that Amazon drone squirting chemicals in if I'm in,
so I put in a level, a detector.
I can detect when a human gets in, the water level rises.
>> And in fact, it turns out, I was looking at the data, I can weigh you.
If you're sitting in my hot tub, I know how much water you've displaced,
I've done the math, and I can weigh you more accurately than a doctor can.
And I know if your head's gone under, because I
have to estimate your head weight because it's not under the water.
So if you go under, I know if you're drowning.
This is totally cool.
I had a bug in that, my hot tub kept thinking somebody was drowning and they
weren't.
I'm like, just go ahead drown, I'm tired of this error message.
>> The next was checking and maintaining water quality, that was the hard part.
That took me a good day and a half to solve that one.
Because the way you check water is you actually dip the water out,
and you put in these little chemicals, and you compare the color.
And I don't have a machine that can do that.
>> So I had to get a laser, and I actually worked with a nanotechnologist
to do this.
Get a laser.
Shoot it through.
And you get the color spread on this little backing piece of nanotechnology.
I don't know how it works.
It gives me data and it allows me to determine the color.
And then I can maintain the water quality.
Very cool.
>> Next was reorder chemicals.
Easy.
Amazon makes buying things from the web so easy.
Bless them.
So it can reorder chemicals.
It can monitor use.
It sends me a signal when somebody's in.
It monitors how often people are in, and I've
gotten a bunch of data about that right.
>> I know how dirty you are when you get in my hot tub.
Because I can check the water before you get in.
I can check the water after you get in.
I know what you've done in my hot tub.
>> The amount of data you can get from these machines
is pretty, pretty amazing.
It will troubleshoot itself.
>> So that's what I'm doing now.
I'm monitoring the voltage and trying to figure out all the noise from the grid.
The Seattle grid is really spiky.
Your grid is, probably, really spiky too.
>> But I'm beginning to find the patterns for when my seals are wearing out,
because when the seals wear out, voltage spikes.
And it stays up.
So it's one of these-- you can detect it over time.
I'm getting to the point where it's going to be able to do that.
>> And then next summer, I'm thinking 3D printing
is going to get good enough that I can just print my own seals.
By the way, that's something else that's happened in 2015.
Before 2015, we were only 3d printing in plastic.
This year we've added metal.
We've added carbon fiber.
We've added sugars.
We can print carbohydrates.
This is crazy.
>> SPEAKER 6: There scientists [INAUDIBLE]
JAMES WHITTAKER: Absolutely.
And it's going to match your DNA, too, so it's going to know.
Because, you know, medicine is made for a six-foot tall white guy.
And so we're going to able to do some amazing things with this.
>> Proteins are coming next.
We're almost to the point where we can print cotton and fibers for clothing.
They're printing houses in China.
They're printing cars in North America.
And so I'm thinking I can print a seal for my hot tub.
>> So now, the cool thing about this is, when these hot tubs
begin to talk to each other, because let's say you have a hot tub
and I have a hot tub.
And my hot tub might say, dude-- because I get to design the hot tub protocol,
and they're all going to call each other dude.
That's just going to happen.
I guarantee that's going to happen.
>> It can say, dude, here's my data.
Here's my usage data.
Here's my chemical data.
Let's look at yours.
And they're going to compare notes.
And they're going to figure out what the best data-- what the best chemical
concoction is.
>> This company makes the best chemical.
This company makes the best chemical for the Northwest.
This company makes the best chemical for a desert climate.
They are going to figure all of this out.
And it's going to be amazing.
>> By the way, this is where the advertising and marketing
economy goes away.
You can't advertise to machines.
And if we're right, and if the machines really
are the next thing, what are you going to advertise?
How are you going to say, hey, I got some hot tub chemicals for you.
Look at these hot tub chemicals, man, they've got dancing cats and stuff.
>> They don't care.
Machines are going to say, we know the data, man, don't come advertising
to me.
And all the machines are going to be in on this.
Yes.
>> SPEAKER 6: One of the next things is building personal apps for ads
so that they don't have to feel like they're being marketed.
>> JAMES WHITTAKER: A couple slides later, I'll talk about that.
Your refrigerator.
I'm building a new house.
I'm shopping for refrigerators.
Refrigerators.
You don't have to just scan things in anymore,
like you used to have to keep the barcode, so it knows you have chicken.
>> Soon as you close your refrigerator door, a bunch of lasers
start shining on your food, figuring out what you have in there,
how long it's been in there, and its chemical composition.
We're going to be able to detect food that's gone bad.
And it's going to be able to know what you have, it's going
to be able to cook, suggest meals.
Your toaster is going to be on the internet of things.
What the hell's a toaster have to say on the internet of things?
Actually, I think the toasters have a lot to say on the internet of things.
But I think one is going to be really interesting.
And that is end of life decisions.
Because one day, your toaster's going to wake up and it's going to say,
wait a minute.
Something's wrong with me.
Ah, my data's off-- something's wrong.
It's going to go out on the internet of toasters.
And he's going to say, dudes, something's wrong with me.
What's wrong with me?
And these other toasters are going to look at the data.
>> And they're going to say, oh dude, you're dying.
Filament number four is wearing thin.
You're about to go.
And it's going to have to order its own replacement toaster.
Is that sad?
That brave little toaster is going to have to do that.
>> And the thing that I think is going to happen
is, you're not going to get a choice of toasters.
Your toaster is going to replace itself.
>> You're just going to get the stock, gray toaster, because you don't care.
>> You have a pink Mac and cool glasses.
You're going to get a stylish toaster.
>> Your machines are going to know what you want.
They're going to know your income level, and the neighborhood,
and what other type of toasters those people are buying.
And they're going to make decisions for you.
>> Now, people in my generation are old enough to say,
I don't want the machines to take over.
I want to make my own decisions.
And we don't matter, because we're going to die sooner than you all.
And you all are going to die sooner than the next generation.
>> And the next generation's going to say, you mean,
you picked out your own toaster?
That's stupid.
You drove your own car?
That's stupid.
Are you kidding me?
>> Your alls kids aren't going to get driver's licenses.
Isn't that cool?
>> Clothing.
Clothing is going to self-market.
We're all going to have to dress better.
Because if I say, man, look at that Microsoft shirt, that is awesome.
I want that shirt in my size.
Now, I could come up to you, and I can have this creepy conversation
about hey, man where did you get that cool shirt?
>> And all of this, or that thing is going to be on the internet of shirts.
And it's going to be able to communicate with my devices.
I don't know how.
Maybe I do this.
Maybe there's a button.
They communicate.
>> And all of a sudden, I have one of those 3D printing at home in my size.
And you get paid from that.
We're going to talk about how to get paid from all this.
You just referred a shirt manufacturer to a new customer.
You're going to get a micropayment for that.
This is my prediction.
Now, it doesn't matter if I'm wrong.
I'm trying to teach you how to ask, and answer, the question, what's next?
I'm giving you example answers.
It may, or may not, work this way.
It doesn't matter.
>> What really matters is that you get practice asking, and answering,
this question, what's next, so you're ahead
of the curve, instead of left behind.
>> So these machines are going to talk to each other, too.
Every time I go, my Microsoft band-- whatever it is--
is going to know I'm traveling in Europe.
And I'm over-eating.
>> And it's going to tell my refrigerator when I get
home, hey man, this guy's unhealthy.
You need to make sure you just order healthy food for him for a few weeks,
and let's get his statistics back together.
They're going to talk to each other.
>> All of this traffic is going to be going on,
and it's going to wash out everything humans are doing on the web,
everything humans are doing with the cloud.
Our devices are going to discern intent.
And they're going to be correct most of the time.
When they're not correct, they're going to learn from it,
and they're going to stop being not correct.
And within five years, our machines are going
to know more about what we need to do during the day than we are.
That's my prediction.
>> Screens.
What if we didn't need screens?
What if we didn't have to carry these things around?
Because screens go away.
If our machines are automatically discerning intent,
why do I need an input device to tell them what I want to do?
Why do I need an output device to look at their suggestions?
We're going to need it for a while, because the machines are
going to be wrong.
The machines are going to say, hey, I think this is your intent, am I right?
Then we'll need it.
But then, they're not going to need that for long.
Or, they're going to say, hey, there's a couple of choices here.
And then we're going to choose and then they're going to learn from that.
And we're not going to need that anymore.
>> If you take away this screen, what happens to this machine?
The electronics in this machine, without the screen,
are about the size of my- glad I chose that finger--
about the size of my index finger.
Because if you take away the screen, you take away 70
some odd percent of the battery, because that's all it does
is service the screen.
>> Moore's law.
Let's push Moore's law a few years into the future.
Instead of this machine being this big, the machine
is going to be, in about four years, the size of just
from the knuckle to the tip.
And in another four years, just the size of my fingernail.
>> We can sew these machines into anything, right?
You can have computers.
Do you realize that this Windows phone I carry in my pocket,
and the smartphones you all carry your pocket,
is more powerful than any computer that existed in 1994?
In 1995, there were two that gave it a run for its money.
1994, 21 years ago.
>> And so now, all this computing power into the size of my fingernail.
You all understand Moore's law is under threat.
Moore's law is going away by 2020.
We will no longer be able to get silicon so thin that we
can continue to double the number of transistors on it, and microprocessors.
How, or what, are we going to do?
>> We're already solving this problem.
IBM has produced-- IBM remember them from the '80s?
They're coming back.
See, it's much easier to come back from a long time
ago than it is to come back from owning the last thing.
That's why I think Apple's in trouble, because they're on top now.
>> A germanium silicon mix, which is going to give a few more years of life,
maybe as much as a decade of life, to Moore's law.
We're also looking at graphene and carbon nanotubes.
Both of those are going to continue Moore's law into the far future.
At least a future that is far away enough to be unimaginable.
>> Machines are going to get a lot more powerful.
And we're not going to need screens.
The screens are going to pop up anywhere.
And you all had HoloLens on yet?
HoloLens uses your brain, tricks your brain into putting objects
that you think are real.
Because that's what your brain already does.
>> I don't look like this.
I am your brain-- the way I look is your brain translating
what the light is doing bouncing off of my skin, and hair, well skin.
That's what HoloLens uses to trick your mind
into seeing things that aren't there.
>> So we put a screen on the wall.
Although this is a total bullshit exercise,
no daughter needs her dad to figure out how to fix this.
That daughter's going to do what everybody else does, and go to YouTube
to figure out how to fix this.
So I don't think I believe that scenario.
>> But this is what it looks like.
It's not virtual reality, it's augmented reality.
Screens can be anywhere.
You can work with this.
You can see a Word document eight feet away from you, giant.
You can have a holographic keyboard materialize and hover right
in front of you, and with the special gloves,
it actually feels like a real keyboard.
>> The screens are going to come when we need them.
And we're not going to need them for most things, just
creative things, design things.
For the times when we are intensely human, again.
Because that's my hope is that the machines will get us back
to that intensely human place.
>> Now let's talk about money.
And again I'm going to talk-- I'm going to go-- I might not be right.
I want you all to ask this question.
I want you all to answer this question.
But I'm showing you how to do it.
>> What about money?
How are we going to make money in this future
when our machines are doing everything for us?
Well, let's take a look in the past.
How did we make money-- sorry, it's not my fault Harvard doesn't have HDMI.
>> The web, how did we make money on the web?
There's two words you're missing web and ads.
>> Why are browsers still the same as they were in 1994?
Do you all realize that?
Netscape Navigator in 1994, here's how it worked.
You invoked it.
And you got a rectangle on a screen.
It had a text box.
You clicked in a text box, typed the search term,
hit Enter, and got 10 blue links.
>> That's the same way the Edge browser, and the Chrome browser,
work 21 years later.
Exactly the same way.
Why?
No other piece of software works the same way as it did 21 years ago.
And it's exactly the same way.
It's a little faster.
And it takes a few more file formats, but that's it.
>> Why?
Because of ads.
Browsers are money making little machines.
Because it's start, stop, start, stop, right?
You have to type in search terms, get a search, stop, opportunity for ads.
>> And then you go to a website, stop, opportunity for ads.
Over and over.
>> It's like the NFL.
They only play for 10 seconds before they stop for commercial break.
It's crazy.
Advertisers love it.
But it doesn't work so well in the apps world, does it?
It's a lot harder.
There's not enough room.
>> Apps are more like soccer.
Where's the ads in soccer?
You can't stop a soccer game.
Go on, go on-- hey, time out, guys.
Aren't you all buggered?
Take a break.
That doesn't worked out way.
>> And apps don't work that way, either.
Because I got that food app, I got that science app, for a reason.
I want to get work done using my app.
Ads get in the way.
So when apps came out, all of a sudden, the ads economy
had to make way for the purchase economy.
>> And for $0.99, forever, not per year, but forever, you
can make those ads go away, and people do.
The purchase economy is beginning to really take hold.
And I think you're going to see it take hold in some really interesting ways,
too.
>> If you look at my blog on medium.com, I wrote
a blog post called Twitter is stupid, which is kind of cool,
because it trended on Twitter.
Twitter is stupid, because this is why it's stupid.
I tweeted this last year, or something, traveling to Boston and New York City
next week.
Any locals who can hook me up with some good live music recommendations?
>> I'm blessed with a lot of followers.
I've got a bunch of people from Boston and New York City.
Nobody replied.
I got two favorites.
Why in the hell would you favorite this tweet?
James can't find no music, asshole.
>> Are you kidding me?
So I thought this is broken.
Surely all of these places, all of these live music venues in these two cities
have a Twitter account, right?
And so I looked it up, because Bing's ingested all the Twitter data.
>> So I could use a few of the API causes-- it's not even codes,
it's just making an API call.
1,500 of them.
1,500 Twitter accounts that claim to be live music venues.
So I just wrote a little loop, and sent this tweet to them.
Blast.
Four lines of code.
>> And then I waited.
I didn't have to wait long.
One minute, because every single people-- all of them who care,
have a social media coordinator, with three screens-- Instagram, Twitter,
Facebook-- waiting for customers.
>> And I'm thinking, what's wrong here?
Here I am in Twitter saying, I want to spend money.
And here are other Twitter accounts, I would like to take your money.
And Twitter's like, would you like to see an ad for-- you're stupid,
Twitter, stupid.
>> How should it work?
It should work like this.
Left swipe, right swipe.
Data to tell me what I like.
Or am I connecting you to the right people?
>> Let's see.
Hyatt Regency Boston says they've got jazz music.
Jazz sucks.
Left swipe.
Holy.
The only people that like jazz are people that play it, for goodness sake.
>> The Boston Symphony, they got classical music now.
Now, now, now.
We legalized marijuana in my state a year or so ago,
and all of a sudden, classical music is sounding a lot better.
But I'm not yet stoned enough.
Left swipe.
>> Orpheum Theater in Boston's got Cage the Elephant and the Foals.
Cage the Elephant is awesome rock band from Kentucky, my homeland.
And I went to see this concert.
>> This is commerce.
This is the purchase economy that's going to begin to take over,
and Twitter is beginning to do this.
I don't know if my blog post had anything to do with it, or not.
But you can now donate money to a political candidate through Twitter.
>> They are finally beginning to connect buyers and sellers
within their ecosystem.
And you are going to see this.
It's a massive threat to Google.
This is a massive threat to anything that puts
ads in the path of buyers and sellers.
>> Facebook and Twitter did this, they would consume much
of the purchase economy on the web.
>> Now what about when devices start coming into play?
What about this scenario.
Cortana, I have to pee.
And I go.
And I come back.
How about that?
How does this person make money in this new economy?
>> I think it's subscriptions and micro payments.
That data is in Azure.
That developer pays a subscription to be an Azure customer.
>> So do a million other, I think Microsoft announced last week
a million paid accounts in Azure, or something like that.
So a lot of money in the ecosystem.
>> So when Cortana sees me go and consume third-party content,
a micropayment will be made.
This makes perfect sense.
The subscription money is already out there.
>> You all have subscript-- you're paying subscriptions to Spotify, and Netflix,
and Comcast, or Time Warner, or whoever whatever lousy cable company you all
are stuck with.
I know they're lousy, because they're all lousy.
>> In order to get from one Game of Thrones episode
to the next Game of Thrones episode on my Comcast box, it's 21 clicks.
Are you kidding me?
That's an opportunity.
>> So for a cent, maybe you watch World War Z. That's a $0.04 pee.
A three hour Hobbit movie, that's a $0.28 pee.
The premiere of Star Wars, that pee's $1, man.
>> So now, instead of you and I, the two lone people who got this app,
makes a couple of dollars, or he makes money on every single customer.
This is the economy that's coming.
Every single, possible customer, when they consume your value, you get paid.
>> Now this, you need to think about very carefully.
Because I think this is the future of making money.
It's your ability to inject value into the ecosystem.
The more the value gets consumed, the more money you're going to make.
>> SPEAKER 6: What about RPGs and buying virtual products?
JAMES WHITTAKER: That's purchase economy, right?
And that's already taking place, so it's now.
>> Now, what about things?
When these machines really begin to start doing real things for us,
it adds one more additional way of making money.
And that's sharing.
Airbnb, we share our houses.
Uber, we share our cars.
>> Do you know there's an Airpnp?
Have you ever been driving, and go, god, I got to go?
Why do all my examples have to do with urination?
God, I got to go, right.
And you're driving by all these houses, with toilets.
It's a buck and a half to go pee at somebody's house.
And then they can rate you, so you can't-- it's got to be clean.
>> So sharing comes about.
In fact, I'm going to do that for my hot tub.
It's going to rent itself out, because it's completely self-maintaining now.
$100 an hour, it's going to rent itself out.
So anyhow, if you're in Woodinville, Washington, next year,
and you need a soak--
>> [THKK]
>> Now, what about when the machines take over.
Because if you listen to people like Ray Kurzweil, and Bill Gates, and Stephen
Hawking, and Elan Musk, everybody's worried about this thing
they call the singularity, the point at which the machines get so
smart that they don't need us anymore.
>> Now we've got a long way to get there, but on the way,
we are going to become less and less relevant.
You understand that our industry has destroyed a lot of other industries.
The video rental industry, gone.
>> The photography industry, gone.
Eastman Kodak used to employ hundreds of thousands
of people, and millions of ancillary jobs,
and taking pictures and developing film, and wedding photographers, all of that
billions of dollars concentrated into the 13 employees of Instagram.
>> We are really good at destroying jobs and making it harder and harder
and harder for people to make money.
So what happens when the machines start doing everything?
What then?
>> Because you know what?
They're going to be better at it than we are.
There is going to come a day, in the very near future, when you will not
get on an airplane if there's a human in the cockpit.
Too dangerous.
I don't know if that person is taking their meds.
No way.
There's going to come a day, not too distant future, where
it will be illegal for a human to drive a car
because the machines are a lot better at it.
They're going to be better at everything.
They're going to be better at building.
They're going to be better at driving.
They're going to be better at paving our roads.
They're going to be better at designing traffic flows.
They're going to be better at designing traffic lights.
They're going to be better than us at all of this.
>> So what do we do?
When the number of jobs that we can do better than machines are,
OK, I'm going to have to take this question, aren't I?
SPEAKER 6: Machines don't have feelings, and they
have no desire to do certain things, nor can they handle things.
JAMES WHITTAKER: They can't desire if they don't have feelings.
SPEAKER 6: Right.
So they don't handle things like interpersonal interactions,
there's going to be more jobs for people like psychologists--
JAMES WHITTAKER: OK.
You're a little bit ahead of me, again.
So bear with me.
I'm going to get there, I promise.
>> So what do we do?
Is that what we're left with?
Basically all just the human part?
Where we're philosophers, and we're poets?
Is this why we're legalizing marijuana?
Are we preparing for this day where basically it just, let's
think deep thoughts and get high.
>> Or it could be what you suggest.
It could be that the machines give us back our humanity.
It could be that they take care of all the things that we don't want to do.
So we can get back to being human.
>> But is this singularity going to come?
It might.
Our machines are getting really powerful.
Why are they?
Why is it all of a sudden that we're talking about AI?
Do you understand what's going into this AI?
I claim it's not AI, at all.
I claim it's just code.
>> Look.
Here's why our computers, our machines, are looking so smart now.
Number one is they got data they didn't have access to.
Even a few years ago, they didn't have access to this data.
Now, everything is born digitally.
Of course, they have the-- there's just that much more data.
>> Secondly, that data's stored together, now.
We don't really have a web.
You all understand the web is already dead.
>> How many of you all have built a web server, over the last year.
So this is the highest concentration of web server developers
that will ever exist in a university.
If I had asked this five years ago, every single one of you
all would be building web servers every week.
Because that's what you did.
You configured web servers all the time.
I had six of them under my desk serving different kinds of traffic.
That's not the web we have anymore.
The web we have now is data centers.
All those web servers have migrated into the cloud, into data centers.
And so they're all together, which means we can store contiguous data,
related data in the same place, and off-line process the crap out of it.
>> Right now, no one's searching for World Cup data.
And so all-- soccer World Cup, maybe rugby but rugby is over now, too.
So all that's migrated to back end machines, and now all this stuff--
>> We can push data that's more popular different places.
And then offline, we can say, OK hey let's
take a look at this World Cup data, and see what
we can figure out, completely offline.
That's why it's looking so much smarter, is because it's all sitting together.
And our machines are a lot faster at processing it.
Vast amounts of data, well-organized, and processed at speed.
>> And yet still, at some point, we are going to figure something
out really important.
And I think it's the Human Brain Project.
That's what we need to watch.
Do you all know about the Human Brain Project?
>> Look, we mapped the human genome with computers no more powerful than this.
In 1990, the Human Genome Project started.
We mapped the genome of an arbitrary human being in 13 years using computers
no power more powerful than this.
>> Now we have computers way more powerful than this.
And we started mapping the brain two years ago.
This is where our machines are going to help.
Our machines allow us to do this.
We don't map the brain without our machines.
And what are we going to discover?
>> What have we already discovered in just two short years?
Two years into the Human Brain Project, we're already
hitting milestones at year eight.
We know what depression looks like.
We know what anxiety looks like.
We know what bipolar looks like.
We know what autism looks like.
>> All of these things are already mapped out.
How much longer until our machines look at this and say,
I know how to cure anxiety.
I know how to cure depression.
Our machines are going to do this.
And it's going to be stunning.
>> So I think our machines are going to allow
us to do what we were meant to do.
This, I think, is the fundamental purpose for human beings
is to explore, to terraform other worlds, to reach other solar systems,
to find other lives, to figure out whether ancient aliens really is true.
>> And we are going to slowly solve every single mystery of mankind.
This is what you all are going to do.
This is what your children are going to do.
And over the decades, we will exhaust every single mystery on the planet,
and on other planets.
And then what?
This is the thought I'm going to leave you with.
Then we'll have questions.
Perhaps, just perhaps, using these magic machines,
the power of our minds amplified by these magic machines,
we'll discover that we weren't meant to go to heaven at all.
>> But through technology, to create heaven for ourselves.
Perhaps, just perhaps, the meaning of life
isn't given to us by a higher power.
Perhaps, we use our technology to evolve into that higher power.
>> Perhaps, God, it is said, created us in his own image.
Maybe, through these magic machines, we create god in ours.
>> My name is James Whitaker.
I work for Microsoft.
Thank you.
Follow me on Twitter, if you'd like.
The transcript of this is on medium.com/@docjamesw.
>> And I'll take questions.
SPEAKER 7: So two questions, first thing.
When we're talking about--
>> JAMES WHITTAKER: Oh, you're getting a free question here, huh?
SPEAKER 7: --App store transforming everything.
But Ubuntu had an app store that looked exactly like the one from Apple.
It was just for desktop.
Why is it that App Store for mobile is that life changing?
JAMES WHITTAKER: Because mobile, that's where all the users were in mobile.
Now there's a second piece to this.
The second piece to this is Steve Jobs, and his amazing storytelling ability.
>> SPEAKER 7: Because technically, the Ubuntu app store
already solved the problem of I have an app for--
>> JAMES WHITTAKER: But there were eight people with Ubuntu machines.
And there were 200 million people with--
>> SPEAKER 7: And that's the Steve Jobs.
>> JAMES WHITTAKER: --iPhones and that's Steve Jobs, right.
But it was the developers, the developers building functionality.
That's why you all have iPhones, and not the other
because they've got the best app store.
What was your second one?
>> SPEAKER 7: About the future.
I always wonder why people say so much, internet of things,
right now, because we basically have the technology,
we had this technology doing most of this stuff like 10 years,
or even 20 years ago.
>> JAMES WHITTAKER: Ah, I don't know.
We had the sensors, but the data-- we didn't have the data.
There wasn't anything useful for them to do.
And we didn't have the conductivity.
Bandwidth is almost free now.
So.
>> SPEAKER 7: Does the data bring that much into it?
>> JAMES WHITTAKER: But it's 10 year cycles.
Everything that you all are using right now is 10 years old.
And what's going to be really big in 10 years has already been invented.
That's why the cloud is underpinning all of this.
And the cloud was invented in 2007.
So it takes a while for the world to catch up with the technology.
Yes, ma'am.
>> SPEAKER 6: So, the Brain Project, there are those people
in the field of psychology, who feel that neuropsychology may turn out
to be nothing more than phrenology.
How do you think-- is it possible to quantify and create
algorithms, understand a state of consciousness and intent,
when we don't understand what those things are?
>> JAMES WHITTAKER: So I actually think that the machines are never
going to catch up to us.
My opinion is that gray matter will end up
being triumphant over germanium, silicon,
carbon nanotubes, and graphene.
I think there's something going on up here that's really special.
I do think we're going to figure it out.
I'm not sure we're going to figure out how to build it.
Yes, sir.
>> SPEAKER 8: Who governs this?
If we get to a point where the machines and our software are making all
of these momentous decisions, does that mean that at some point we--
in our world where governance isn't important anymore, and Google,
Microsoft and international corporations--
>> JAMES WHITTAKER: That's why people are signing all these petitions
to create rules about never-- we've already programmed machines to kill.
We've done that, and the machines have independently
killed people, because they are obeying their programming.
>> And so, we can program them to do anything we want.
Where are those laws going to come from?
Do people trust-- the companies at the forefront of this
are Microsoft, Google, IBM, even Cisco, Tesla.
Who are we going to trust?
>> I mean, this is a societal level discussion
that really needs to take place.
I don't have an answer for it, because I don't think there is one yet.
Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, they'll figure it out.
>> [LAUGHING]
>> I love blue states.
We can laugh on things like that.
Wow, I have to be careful when I talk in red states.
Any more questions?
Yes, sir.
>> SPEAKER 7: So when you were talking about things,
you know, if you went to the movie theater,
and you used the bathroom, that a payment would already happen.
>> JAMES WHITTAKER: Yeah.
Money is going to be moving around, so that micropayment,
I am 100% sure that that's going to happen.
It has to.
The App Store is breaking down.
No one's making money in the App Store.
And whenever no one makes money, that's when change happens.
>> It was harder to make-- easier to make money on web than Windows.
That's when the transition went.
When it was easier to make money on mobile than the web,
that's when the transition went.
When it's easier to make money in the cloud than on mobile,
that's going to be the transition.
It's capitalism.
Did I get all your question?
>> SPEAKER 7: So actually it was more about-- does
that mean you see the industry becoming more consolidated?
>> JAMES WHITTAKER: At first.
But it's going to be a reaction.
My prediction is, actually, that it's going to be individuals.
I don't know how long the big companies are going
to last because we won't need them.
>> When infrastructure is free, storage is free.
Yeah.
If you all need to go, you won't hurt my feelings by filing out.
But when storage is free, when infrastructure is free,
when networks are free, when communication is free,
there's no advantage to the big conglomerates anymore.
So it's an individual thing.
>> It's your ability to code, it's your ability
to code, it's her ability to code, and inject value into the ecosystem.
Because the infrastructure is going to be free.
It could be a great age of the individual.
Yes, sir.
So did you have the grand scale of everything
you covered, but I just had a question about what
your vision for [INAUDIBLE], how to interact with [INAUDIBLE] directly
everything is totally taken care of.
So you talked about [INAUDIBLE] you'd have
Word doc and [INAUDIBLE] over here.
And so one thing I found about physical [INAUDIBLE] systems
is that some things are evolving, like touchscreens
are definitely getting way better than they used to be.
Mice are getting way better than they used to be.
But the physical keyboard is actually pretty amazing.
And it's [INAUDIBLE]
JAMES WHITTAKER: Is it, or is it-- so I don't know the answer,
but I want you to not get lost in your opinions.
Question that.
Is it just your familiarity with a physical keyboard
that's creating this affinity to it?
Or is it really something that is-- because we're very limited by it.
This corded keyboard is actually the wrong way to type fast.
Artificially, slows us down because the old mechanical things
we needed to slow typists down.
Right?
I don't know.
>> I think, I believe that the machines are going
to be able to figure out intent really easily.
If you're a writer, you're going to need it.
Right?
The machines, those input devices, are going to be for the creatives.
That's how we're going to know who are our artists, who are our creators, who
are our designers, and who are just the muggles, that go through world not
needing their machines.
>> Keep thinking about this, and be careful of your biases.
We all inject biases in this.
I've got biases injected in this.
That's why I warned you, this is not what's going to happen,
it's my opinion of what's going to happen.
I want your all's take away to be you walk out of here thinking, what's next?
What's next?
I want you cussing me in the middle of the night when you wake up and say,
what's next?
Damn James.
Asshole.
What's next.
Careful of your biases.
>> Is there more questions?
Yes, sir.
>> SPEAKER 7: Earlier you talked about machines being able to predict intent
and what people want.
What happens-- will they be able to know when people want to change their minds
or trying something new?
Let's say your fridge is going to order your groceries for you.
What if one day I want to try coconut milk ice cream.
JAMES WHITTAKER: I remember my mother-in-law--
I remember tasting flavored coffee one time
and thought, um, that's really good.
And every time we went to visit her she had flavored coffee flavor
and I'm like, how do I tell her?
So I mean, we don't have to worry about hurting machine's feelings.
And so you just--
>> SPEAKER 7: Tell it.
>> JAMES WHITTAKER: Yeah.
Tell it.
Speak to it.
Or whatever.
The interfaces-- I think there's going to be a time, a phase where
we are going to be discovering this.
It seems to me that you know, you said touch screens are really getting good.
To me that means they're doomed.
Because as soon as we perfect technology, we don't use it anymore.
>> PCs got really good, and we're like, oh sorry.
We're cheating on our PCs now with these.
These are going to get really good and it's going to go into something else.
>> 10 years.
10 years seriously.
10 year cycles.
Think about that.
It is as reliable and as accurate as Moore's law.
>> Anybody who hasn't asked a question, yet?
>> So I also teach a course on storytelling, and on creativity,
the brain science guy on how to be creative.
Neuropsychology is a really, really cool topic.
And I've decoded creativity and I know what it takes to be creative.
>> So if you all enjoyed this, I can come back sometime
and teach one of the other seminars.
And the storytelling class actually tells six stories and deconstruct them.
If you go to docs.com, you can see me doing this with a high school.
I give a high school commencement speech throughout the state of Washington.
>> And I give this speech, and then deconstruct it,
and talk about why you all have been sitting here paying attention.
When most of the time you sit there and stare at a PowerPoint,
you're bored of fucking tears, right?
>> There is actually a method to the madness.
And I tell a great story about Larry Page.
SPEAKER 6: Can we come to workshops?
Or do you just do seminars?
JAMES WHITTAKER: Well, I teach these monthly at Microsoft.
All of them--
>> SPEAKER 6: But for creative writing,
JAMES WHITTAKER: Oh, right.
Got it, no.
I give homework.
And so, at Microsoft, the way I do it is I take classes and chop them
into four bits, and give homework, and then we talk about the homework
afterwards.
It would be great.
So maybe we could do one together.
>> I just hate running workshops.
So I don't do it, because I don't like it.
Not that it's not important, it's very important.
I just don't like it.
Any more questions?
Peace.