Don't freak out: Your chauffeur is a computer

Tonight, We'll go out for dinner. Just before we leave the house, I'll ask Siri to start the car to take us to the heart of Portland's Old Port where there's very little parking. We'll get into a warm vehicle, read the menu and watch the news until the car arrives at le Restaurante Expensive. The car will stop at the front door, we'll get out and the car will drive away and park itself until I summon  it. It then will be waiting outside the restaurant when we're ready to go and then take us home. 

When we go out next Saturday, instead of having the car park itself, I'll simply tell Siri "Uberize" and the car will become part of the Uber network picking up and discharging passengers while we enjoy our evening out. We'll be making money while we dine.

If that sounds bizarre, imagine if I told you ten years ago that you could have a conversation with your cell phone, that it would tell you restaurants within a half mile of your location, plot a turn-by-turn trip across the country or become your wallet for routine payments. Ya, right.

The rate of change is staggering and it's bounded only by imagination as we begin to experience the benefits and challenges of machine learning and artificial intelligence. It's both frightening and exciting.

In the world of insurance, this transformation is challenging. If my driverless vehicle gets in an accident, who's at fault? Not me. According to a recent article, regulators now have included computers in the definition of a "driver." Suddenly, determining fault should something happen changes who will pay for damages and who will pay the insurance premiums. Will liability shift in part or entirely to manufacturers and computer programmers? Will we even own our a vehicle or simply summon a car owned by a transportation company? (Note: CNBC reported that "In the six years of the project, Google said it has been involved in '17 minor incidents' and completed more than 2 million miles of autonomous and manual driving combined. Google added that the driverless car has never been the cause of an accident.).

While we're digesting these new concepts, know that in California, they are developing a pneumatic tube for traveling at ultra-high speeds between city centers. 

If you want to see just how far and fast we're traveling into the digital age, read The Second Machine Age by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee. They will take you through the economic and social implications of where we're going. Don't blink.