Oscar Salazar, one of the original three co-founders of the ride-hailing company Uber, said he believes that artificial intelligence will change the world.
Salazar, who left the world’s highest-valued “unicorn” startup shortly after its launch, still serves as an advisor and large shareholder. He has since launched other ventures, including Ride, a car-pooling app, and Pager, an on-demand medical consultation service.
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Aside from transportation and health care, there’s a third area where AI is bound to have a major impact, Salazar told Tech Insider in a recent interview: education.
“Imagine any kid in the world having access to a teacher,” Salazar told the tech news site. “It’s a revolution.”
In Salazar’s futuristic vision, smartphones will serve as bespoke teachers. Artificially intelligent bots programmed on them could perfect their methods of instruction, tailoring their teaching styles to each student’s needs.
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“This is your classroom,” the former Uber tech chief reportedly said, mobile device in hand. “This is a school.”
Few areas of technology are as hot as AI at the present moment. The technology is powering driverless cars, virtual assistants, board game-champion machines, a flurry of startups, and more. Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg even made coding his own “simple AI” as his New Year’s challenge for 2016.
Despite some warnings that AI could spell humanity’s doom if improperly handled, Salazar said he thinks the technology could be used for good, per his hypothetical mentor-bots. “This is the best way to end terrorism in the world,” he told Tech Insider—”education.”
