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Food delivery.
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It's the thing that saves
millennials from starvation.
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By my calculations,
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Americans order over 20 million
restaurant deliveries
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every single day.
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Over half of these deliveries
are actually within walking distance.
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But nine out of 10 are delivered in cars.
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So basically,
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we are moving a two-pound burrito
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in a two-ton car
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20 million times a day.
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The energy to bring you that burrito
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is actually bringing you
a two-ton metal cage
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with heated seats.
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Let's be honest.
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We are addicted to our cars.
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Did you know that in America
for every car,
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there are four parking spots?
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In some downtowns,
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over half of the real estate is for cars.
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We have designed our cities
around our cars,
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because we drive
whether we're going two miles
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or 200 miles.
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Solo, or with our whole family.
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We get into the same SUV
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to go buy coffee or a coffee table.
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If we could free up
some of these streets and parking lots,
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we could build more housing,
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more social spaces, more parks.
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But to do that,
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first, we need to rethink
how we are using cars today.
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In the city of the future,
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if you want to go five blocks,
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you summon a bike or a scooter.
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If you're in a rush,
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a passenger drone would pick you up.
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And if you need food,
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no need to have someone drive over.
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The food will make its way to you.
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Let's go back to those 20 million a day
restaurant deliveries.
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If we could get
these deliveries off the road,
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we could reduce the need
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for as many as one and a half
million cars just in the US.
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That's twice the size of San Francisco.
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Now think of the impact this could have
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on cities like Delhi,
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or my birth city of Tehran,
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where car pollution is killing
thousands of people every year.
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So how do we get some
of these deliveries off the road?
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Well that's the question
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that my team and I have been obsessed with
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over the last three years.
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And the solution is
actually one of the building blocks
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of the city of the future.
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We've been creating
small, self-driving robots
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that navigate quiet alleys and sidewalk
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on a walking pace,
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and have a secured cargo
to deliver you food and supplies.
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Now, before I tell you
more about the robots,
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let's do a quick thought experiment.
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In your mind, picture a city
with thousands of robots.
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Is it this one?
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This Hollywood dystopia
is what a lot of people expect.
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But our job is to create a friendly future
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that's designed for people.
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So instead of making aliens,
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we set out to create robots
that are familiar.
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Robots that would belong
in our communities.
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But we also wanted a little surprise.
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Something unexpectedly delightful.
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Think about it.
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You're walking down the street,
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and you see your very first robot.
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That's the moment
when you're going to decide
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if this is a future you love or fear.
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And with a lot of people
having these dystopian ideas,
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we need to open their minds.
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We want to surprise and delight them,
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so that we can win them over
on first impression.
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This is what we came up with.
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It's familiar, but it's also surprising.
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It's just a shopping cart,
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but it also looks like
we crossbred WALL-E with Minions.
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If you live in San Francisco
or Los Angeles,
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chances are one of these
has already delivered your food.
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As soon as we put robots
out on the street,
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we learned some
really interesting problems.
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Like, how should robots cross the road?
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Or how should robots interact with people
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with visual or mobility impairments?
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We quickly realized
that we need to teach our robots
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how to communicate with people.
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People on the sidewalk
come from every walk of life,
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so we needed to create a new language.
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Kind of a universal language
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so people and robots
can understand each other
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right off the bat.
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Because no one is going
to be reading user manuals.
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We started with eyes,
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because eyes are universal.
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They can show where the robot is going
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or if it's confused.
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Plus, eyes make robots more human.
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We also used sounds.
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For example, we created this running sound
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with frequent gaps,
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so that people with visual impairments
could locate their robots
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using the Doppler effect.
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But it turned out these were not enough.
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At intersections,
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cars would cut in front of our robots.
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Drivers were getting confused sometimes
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because robots would take too long
before they started crossing.
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Even ordinary pedestrians
were getting confused.
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Sometimes they couldn't figure out
on which side to pass the robots,
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because robots make a lot
of small adjustments to their direction
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as they move.
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This actually sparked a new idea.
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What if we used movement
to create a universal language?
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Like, at intersections,
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robots would gently move forward
before they start crossing,
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to signal to drivers that it's their turn.
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If they see someone in a wheelchair,
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they yield by pointing themselves
away from the sidewalk,
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to signal that they're not going to move.
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Some of you may remember this.
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In 2015, Canadian researchers
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sent a robot hitchhiking across the US.
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It didn't get very far.
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It turns out that robots
can also use some social skills.
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Like, if they're being tampered with,
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Carnegie Mellon researchers have shown
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that small toy robots should play dead
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because people feel bad
when they think they broke it.
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But delivery robots aren't toys,
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they're not small,
they are out there in public.
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We found that with delivery robots,
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to get people to stop tampering,
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robots need to show awareness.
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It's kind of the opposite of playing dead.
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In this case,
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robots need to acknowledge the situation
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to get people to step away.
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Also, a word of advice.
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If you are a robot and you see small kids,
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run towards the closest adult.
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It turns out that some kids
just love harassing robots.
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So besides dystopia,
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Hollywood also promised us
some really cool robots
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that would run our errands
or keep us company.
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So far, we've really focused
on food delivery,
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but in the future,
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these robots can do more.
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Like, they could gather excess food
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and bring it to shelters every night.
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Because in America,
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we waste 30 percent of our food
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while 10 percent of our people
experience food insecurity.
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These robots could be
part of the solution.
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Or when we have hundreds of robots
running around cities,
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we could have robots carry
emergency medications at all times,
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just in case someone nearby
has an allergic reaction
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or an asthma attack.
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These robots could be on site
within a minute or two,
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faster than anyone else.
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And during pandemics,
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robots can be a key part
of our infrastructure.
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They can ensure
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that we can provide our communities
with the essential needs
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even during emergencies.
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Let me leave you with one last thought.
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Today, objects can't get from A to B
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without human help.
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Because our three-dimensional world
is quite complex.
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But new sensors and AI can change that.
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In a way, technology is like a baby
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that has just learned to recognize objects
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and understand words,
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and maybe even hold a basic conversation,
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but it hasn't learned to walk yet.
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Now, we are teaching technology
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how to navigate
the three-dimensional world
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without our help.
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We are entering this new era
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where insentient objects
are going to get up and move freely.
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And when they do,
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we've got to make sure
they don't look like aliens.
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My vision for the future
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is that when things come to life,
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they do so with joy.
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You know, less like
the movie "Terminator,"
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and more like "Toy Story."
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Thank you.