Magazine panelists weigh in on fear of robots and overvalued companies
“Do you fear intelligent robots?” That’s one question The Atlantic put to a panel of Silicon Valley technologists. It’s timely inasmuch as the topic was touchd on in a recent New York Times column and in a keynote address at last week’s International Test Conference.
We’ll get to The Atlantic panel’s response to the robot question in a minute. But the magazine also posed other interesting questions—for example, what is the most overvalued tech company? 23% of the panelists chose Uber, with Alok Bhanot, CTO and executive vice president, VeriFone, calling it a startup with no physical assets that matches the valuation of GM and Ford.
The three runners up—Twitter, Snapchat, and Slack—are light on physical assets as well.
Another question asked panelists which companies would still exist in 20 years. More than 90% of respondents believe Apple, Google, and Amazon will still be in business. Less than 30% expect Yahoo, Twitter, and eBay to exist for 20 more years.
However, Carl Bass, president and CEO, Autodesk, commented that people underestimate how slowly companies disappear. A better question, he suggests, is how relevant they will be.
As for fearing intelligent robots, only 22% of the panelists do, while 78% do not. Representing the majority, Leyla D. Seka, senior vice president and general manager, Desk.com, said, “We can unplug things. People need to calm down.”
Other questions centered on which presidential candidate the panelists would vote for in 2016, which election issue is most important, what the greatest work of science fiction is, what startup is most likely to change the world, and who should be President of Silicon Valley (if such a position existed).
Read all the questions and responses and the complete list of panelists here.
