When it comes to three-time entrepreneur Pablo Orlando, one thing is for certain: he dreams big. Primarily known for GoodPeople.com (the biggest active lifestyle marketplace in Argentina, with a hefty following in The States), he’s since moved onto his latest venture: introducing artificial intelligence to vehicles. Only a few weeks ago, Pablo launched the first autonomous driving car in Argentina to the public.
The little yellow cars, designed for the Buenos Aires government to poll the public’s opinion on autonomous driving, are electric, feature touch screen and move up to 35 miles per hour. At one point during the launch, Pablo walked in front of the vehicle as it drove along its pre-programmed route. The car looked as if it would crash, but instead it swiftly analyzed Pablo’s presence and slowed to a halt (Watch the video above to see Pablo’s car in action).
Pablo isn’t looking to directly compete with Google in the autonomous car manufacturing business. Although he sees the manufacture of cars as a potentially viable avenue to take the fledgling start up, he has his focus set on developing and licensing software that can be programmed into existing vehicles, so that they too can have artificial intelligence features.
“We’re bringing artificial intelligence to existing vehicles,” explains Pablo. “Once our software is programed, trains will be speaking with each other. We are also prototyping the software with buses, ultimately preventing collisions due to blind spots.”
Will these vehicles become completely autonomous using Pablo’s software? Not yet, but they will contain features that incorporate artificial intelligence.
“One of our biggest problems,” says Pablo, “is the need for numerous types of high quality engineers. We may be focused on building software, but if we want to create autonomous cars we need to understand how to build the hardware too. It’s a learning process.” But Pablo’s team is learning! While it took the engineers two years to develop their first autonomous car, it only took three months to develop the second, and one month to develop the third.
“At the end of the day, the future is in the internet of things,” states Pablo. “Soon, everything we own will have some kind of artificial intelligence embedded within.”
Sounds scary? Not all entrepreneurs look at the power of artificial intelligence as a benefit to mankind. In fact, Elon Musk, CEO and Founder of Tesla, is well known for his cautious if not pessimistic view on AI, stating at one point that, “With artificial intelligence we are summoning the demon…. I think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence.”
“Regardless of how you feel about artificial intelligence, it’s coming,” predicts Pablo. “Soon your Roomba will talk with your Apple TV, your TV will speak with your Nest and your Nest with your car. For better or worse, technology will become smarter. Why fight it?”