Ian Khan, futurist and emerging technology expert, discusses with David Lin, anchor for Kitco News, the technological disruptions that investors should watch for.
Kitco news special coverage of the future. Blockchain summit is brought to you by cook finance, a revolution in deep by asset management. Our next guest is Ian Conn. Ian, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, David. Thanks for being here. Ian is a technological futurist. He's a filmmaker as well. You've got a few credited titles under your name, including the blockchain city GX now, and your latest documentary, which we'll be discussing today.
The Bitcoin dilemma. I want to ask you what the dilemma is, of course, but first I have an interesting proposition for you. I'm going to name a few scifi movies or titles franchises. Um, each of them covering a different theme of the future. And I want to talk about how likely it is that some of these themes will become reality over the next.
I want to say within our lifetimes, they want to talk about the impact to society. Okay. So the first one is my personal favorite movie, the matrix. The idea that we're all living in some sort of virtual reality or a simulation, and we're all hooked up to not necessarily a cup battery, but we're all sort of living in an interacting with people through virtual reality, otherwise known as a metaverse.
Yup. So the matter worse is here, I mean, unless they're already living in the matrix and we don't know about it, let's, let's go beyond that. But, uh, the evolution of the metaverse has to. Uh, there's a huge investment investments coming from really big tech on the metaverse, including Facebook and other companies.
Um, things are being traded now on the metaphors. So, uh, you know, digital art is being traded and there's many, many interesting things happening on the metaphors. It is happening and this is the time to get involved. Okay. Uh, we were talking about AI offline, so I robot will Smith movie. The idea that in the future we'll have robots.
Form of a human sort of perform our tasks for us potentially think for themselves and possibly be dangerous to society. I think we're still about a couple of decades away from having robots that are intelligent, that have some kind of artificial general intelligence built into them. And they're actually able to do things in a more humanistic.
But, but no, we're still getting there. What's keeping us away as the hardware or the software, I think is just the convergence off the hardware and the software, uh, separately they work. Okay. But it still needs intelligence built into it. Uh, but, but things are moving in that. I don't know if you remember this movie from the nineties, uh, the fifth element, uh, Bruce Willis, flying cars, flying cars.
When can we see flying cars? It's more like a regulatory issue in flying cars and a little bit of technology as well. Uh, we're not there yet where we can have super condensed jet propulsion engine. So that technologically, that aspect hasn't been mastered. I would say another 25 to 30 years, but we do have actually flying taxis coming soon.
I mean, the UK just built its first hub from Hyundai is called well, it's literally an airport it's called. They're going to be building a few of those around the world. So it basically looks like a big drone that people can be in. So I think that's still the end in Dubai as well. They had this launch five years ago, but Gullo, copter and decide it's going to they'll have flying taxis here.
I think we're still, I believe from a distance. Uh, maybe, maybe at least 10, 15 years ago, 10, 15 years or so. Is that the technology that we're not fully seeing? Uh, or is it the regulatory side that you mentioned the regulations as well as the commercial liability of it, rather than, you know, actual people using it on an everyday basis, would you use a flying car?
I would, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. If it saves me time, energy costs and why not a self-driving flying car as well. Right. Exactly. Well, let's talk about self-driving cars. I mean, there's a lot of movie examples that use those. Tom cruise is a movie about a camera in the neighborhood. He was a cop that could foresee the future, but there was, there were, you know, autonomous cars in that, in that movie as well.
So my now two reports, minority minority report, that's it? Minority report. Yeah. So that's happening already. The technology is developing. There's a lot of startups working on that. Big companies are working on that as well already, but we're not seeing that massively adopted. So self-driving car technology is, has multiple levels to it.
Say level 1, 2, 3, 4, and five. We are at level number one and a half level. Number two right now for autonomous cars to be all intelligent and do what they need to do. They need to be at level five and we're not there yet. Uh, in the labs who knows who's got the level five car they might, but, but I don't think we're there yet.
Would you say that's a disruptive technology? I mean, it's like. Revolutionize automobile consumption. What's going to happen to the taxi industry. For example, if you can just hail an Uber that's self-driving I think over the long-term or the next 20 years. Yes. The auto industry will be very different transportation.
It will be different, but here we need to keep in mind. It's also regulations. It's also the roads that need to be prepared and equipped for the technology. Uh, right now, you can't have those autonomous cars on the roads everywhere because we have people driving as well. And unless we don't have people off the roads, uh, and, uh, because insurance gets involved, right.
There's many other, uh, players in the equation. So I think another 15 to 20 years, maybe we have a society where we've got all autonomous cars. Yeah. Just on a note on cars, I think electric vehicles. Developing simultaneously with the advancement of autonomous vehicles. In fact, they're moving in tandem.
There are many jurisdictions around the world, including the state of New York state of California. The UK, for example, recently banned the sale of petrol vehicles after a certain year. I think in the UK, it's 2030 in New York. It's 2035. So they're really not letting that it's not just a matter of government subsidies.
We're encouragement. They're banning this. Uh, federal car. So that's shifting very fast in some places what's that going to do for our infrastructure, our grid. And of course the automobile industry, I think 2030, if it is 2030s to early to then, uh, you know, conventional fuel-based, fossil fuel-based, uh, automobiles and cars and transportation, uh, because, uh, I don't think they're bending them on the road or betting a sale.
So yeah. Yeah. It's still, I think it's, it's early because number one, uh, the energy industry, it doesn't mean. Uh, the oil companies will not like it. And second with that means all the automobile manufacturers have to essentially stop selling those cars. And it's, it's two to two big dinosaurs that you need to fight with in order to get forward.
I do expect that deadline to move forward, maybe 20, 45, something around that time, but purely because there's. There's a huge movement of things that needs to take place. But I do believe that a battery powered cars are the way of the teacher. They are rapidly increasing it's, they're great for the environment.
Great for the consumer. And, uh, I do hope and believe they will be, you know, growing in numbers as we go forward. The argument that EVs are better for the environment. I'll just leave it at that. Is that a statement you agree with? I personally agree with it. Yes. On the emission side, absolutely. On the emission side is good.
But when we look at the responsible disposal of the batteries that are in there, we've got to be really careful about what's happening to those batteries. What's happening to recycling them because they contain a lot of lead. Other chemicals will normally polonium and so on, uh, that that need to be disposed of in the right way.
This next one is not a movie per se. It's a video game that came out recently, cyberpunk 2017. So the idea that a chip can be inserted into your brain and you can download and upload information at will a neuro link, which is a company that Elon Musk is involved with right now is working on exactly that.
So how likely is that to be a part of our everyday consumption? I don't think it will happen for at least the next decade and a half. It's just way too intrusive on the human body. It's not going to happen, realistically. Uh, but I love the idea and yes, Neuralink is one of the companies that's working on.
It. There's other companies that are developing similar things. They've got great products. Uh, in my, one of my upcoming documentaries is called AI, the next frontier, and I'm interviewing somebody who's researching brain implants and they've been working on it. So that's something interesting. Finally, let's talk about the next frontier for mankind, which is.
Space exploration is hot right now. You've got, uh, Jeff bayzos, you've got Virgin galactic. So star Trek. Another one of my personal favorites is franchises. When's that going to happen? Uh, I don't think star Trek literally will happen for another 30 years. It's not possible. It's literally based hundreds of years from now.
So the fact that you said 30 is pretty, pretty encouraging some extent to some extent, not the full extent, right? Uh, but I do feel based on what we've seen in the last 10 years, 10 20. The next 30 could be really promising when you've got some kind of commercial space travel happen. I don't know if we'll transport ourselves at quantum.
And we'll have wormholes. I don't know about that. Yeah, but definitely the technology will be up ahead. Well, do you think space travel will be commercially viable for the average man? Will it be affordable? Can we go from London to New York via space travel at an affordable rate, like a plane right now?
The question is, would. Be off any benefit or not. And that's the bottom line. If there's a benefit to it in terms of, Hey, you can do that in one hour now, then somebody will find a way to commercialize it and sell it. And there will be people who will buy it. Right. And that's literally, it's technologies, there's many incredible technologies, but they need to be commercialized in order to be viable.
So we'll see. I don't know. Well, look, the airline shovel was off limits for most people when it came out. I've now every word, Dubai. I mean, I'm not based in Dubai, so obviously it's accepted. Do you think airline travel could become even more accessible in the future? Could it be even this cheapest, a bus?
Let's say if everybody had a flying car that, well, it wouldn't go transatlantic, but you know what I mean? Right. Could airline travel be as affordable as public transportation today? Do you see that happening? Oh, so to answer that the cost of living is increasing, right? Uh, you, you get a bread for 10 times what you used to get at, you know, 50 years ago, I think in the future.
Uh, it might be a little bit more affordable, but I'm not saying it will be as cheap as a bus ticket, but you know, salaries will increase. People will make more money. So yeah, it might be something that there will be more off. People will travel more. Uh, yes. So let's bring it back to blockchain. Now we are at a blockchain conference.
Let's talk about your documentary. It's a, c'mere at the conference just this week on Monday. Congratulations. What's the dilemma with. So the film is the Bitcoin dilemma and the dilemma behind Bitcoin and every cryptocurrency is what is it? Well, first of all, you're differentiating, differentiating between from the rest of blockchain.
Are you, is it just focused on Bitcoin? Uh, no. The film is about Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency industry with Bitcoin being the, you know, the big, the primary face of crypto today because it was the first cryptocurrency to. Uh, it's, you know, it's the golden child of crypto as, as you can. Um, uh, if we can say that, uh, but the dilemma is really what exactly is crypto?
How does it change my life? What should I do with it? These are the questions in everybody's minds. Every common person out there in the world has these questions, right? You have a set of people who are traders, who are trading crypto, who are pumping crypto. You've got influential people, pumping cryptocurrencies and saying, Hey, this is the greatest thing ever.
We're going to accept crypto for our payments, for our, whatever you want to buy from us. That's great. So the common person starts thinking, is this something that I need to do and put my 401k into, put my investments into, and that's the dilemma. The dilemma is it's an industry that's not regulated. It doesn't have local regulations.
So what do we do? But there are many Intuit are not invest or not take it seriously or not. And that's what the film is all about is answering the questions about what exactly is going on. What's the future of crypto? How has money changed or the last thousands of years and what is it now and how is it moving forward?
Um, and so all those questions are being answered by experts in their own. In the documentary and people like, um, the ex economist, ex chief economist of the sec, Chester's bad. He's in there talking about money, mark your skull. Um, no, but investor trader a hedge fund manager. Um, and you've got incredible people from the Bitcoin foundation, uh, how I also have Leemon Baird, who is a cryptocurrency inventor and creator.
And all of these people are talking about what is the future and where are things going? So that's what the film is. Absolutely. Okay. Where can we watch this film before it move on? So the film is on YouTube. First of all, you can watch it on YouTube, just type, uh, the Bitcoin dilemma movie. You'll find the type, my name, you'll find it.
And it'll also be on some, uh, video on demand platforms as we go to, uh, you know, then we'll put the link to the video and the audio description and it's freely available. So yeah. Thank you. Thank you for that. Okay. I want to talk about a big point as both a currency and an asset class. That's make that distinct.
On the asset class fund, do you think that Clint can become, or will become a mainstream asset class being adopted by institutional all institutional funds and retail investors like like stocks, for example, stocks hurt asset class, institutional investors have adopted stocks. Do you think Bitcoin can fit that category in the future?
I think to some extent it might. I mean, I think two things are going for Bitcoin generally. Number one. Uh, it's the poster child for cryptocurrencies because it was the first one. So that's great. It's a good, good brand image to have a Bitcoin is however, not the most efficient cryptocurrency. It has, uh, uh, a fairly good sized carbon footprint, but the efficiency has definitely come into play over the years.
It does not consume as much electricity as it does in the past. So all the bad things associated with Bitcoin are not necessarily true today. Things have changed in the last decade. So that's one side of it. Another side of it is that Bitcoin has the limited supply. So any trader who's trading in anything, whether it's stocks, bonds, it's commodities, they know the supply and demand or anything.
That's less than supply more demand. Right? A Bitcoin has a limited supply. It'll always be 21 million coins out of which I think 85% of them are already mined. And you've left with the rest of, you know, 10, 15% of Bitcoin. It will always have value. It will always increase in value. And we're seeing that from NFTs right now, they're being sold for astronomical prices, 60 million millions of dollars, and it'll keep on increasing, right?
So don't be surprised if the next big NFT is a hundred million or $200 million. Um, and so for those two reasons, Bitcoin will always be sought after, and it's got nothing to do. The fluctuations. That's a different. Uh, is it a long-term stable asset class currency to invest in? I don't know about that.
Probably an investor can ask us what stable coins are for, right? Yes. So the industry is evolving. There's many other currencies coming into play, but I think institutionally it, it might be, it might be tricky to say that this is the one that you're going to invest in. Let's talk about, uh, Bitcoin as a currency.
Now what El Salvador did, which is to legalize Bitcoin as a form of payment, is that the trend for every single other country in the world? Where do you think El Salvador is? Absolutely not, absolutely not. So out Salvador, it has a very small economy. It's a country dependent on imports more and more than it's actually.
El Salvador also does not have its own currency. It uses the U S dollars traditionally as its own currency. And so what they did is they said, Hey, we'll standardize on Bitcoin and we'll start using Bitcoin as our currency, but at the backend of vendors, many things that El Salvador needs to get. In order to make that make that work properly.
They've got to equip every person who's buying or selling anything in the country with some kind of crypto with some kind of Bitcoin, specially or Satoshi. So what they're doing is the purchase. I think 20, I don't know the exact number that they purchase a large number of. And now they're going to fund every citizens wallet with some crypto in it too, in order for them to start buying and selling things.
It's a really different way of kind of implementing a crypto. I would have gone the route of creating a crypto that's. That's not Bitcoin related, but then it's packed to something so interesting. Develop. But I have a few questions in my mind about how successful it will be because of many, many different trade-related aspects to this whole thing.
What do you think about central bank digital currencies? Uh, you mentioned that not all countries need to do what El Salvador is doing, but a lot of central banks in the world are moving into CBCD. Why do you think they're doing that? So central banks are under pressure from the crypto industry because people now have the power of having crypto and trading and buying things on it.
Central banks definitely are feeling the pressure on needing to think digitally. Right? You see this happening in China where the digital Yuan has been in place for some time. And China's trying to, uh, they have kicked out, uh, cryptocurrencies from China and they've stopped trading in band. All of those things that have happened in the past month and a half, uh, which is very interesting.
Uh, China has cited that it's the carbon footprint. It's many other reasons. Uh, but, but we know that crypto does not have as much of a carbon footprint. I mean, your, your lawnmower has more carbon footprint than anything else, right? Uh, so I think central bank related digital currencies are potentially going to come to more in the next, uh, five to eight years.
Uh, the question needs is how and who will be the first one. I see smaller economies, of course, adopting them more, uh, smaller regions doing them more. So we'll see. Yeah, I can predict moving away from cryptos now going into the investment space. I think investors watching our show right now. Are interested to know from you, uh, you know, a scientist, a futurist, what the biggest disruptions in our society will be over the next 10 to 15 years.
We've seen a lot of funds follow that model. Kathy woods arc funds essentially invest in companies that she believes will be disruptors. So what do you think will be the biggest. Um, there's a lot happening in tech. Uh, we can talk about technology endlessly, but there's some that stand out. Uh, and, uh, they definitely, in my opinion, without any, uh, you know, a specific, uh, importance, uh, blockchain technology definitely is the foundation of crypto.
It's the foundation of NFTs of smart car. And so for that reason, blockchain is really high on my agenda to follow, uh, my documentary, uh, blockchain, uh, city after a couple of years ago, talks about blockchain and what it does. And so I think you need to watch the blockchain space and what comes out of it.
Right? NFTs are just one part of it. Uh, blockchain is more related to. Creating a platform rather than just one commodity. So it's very, very important that we look into it. Artificial intelligence has been a buzzword for a few years now, but, uh, it permeates many aspects of what we do, the smart cars, the robots, uh, you know, even things like RPA, uh, that robotic process automation that many industries use is related to artificial intelligence in some ways.
So AI is also growing at an unprecedented. Uh, watch that space to see what it does. And it has so much in it. You've got to pick a lane and choose. Uh, we also have the internet of things, which is again about connectivity, about connected cars, about connected infrastructure, the development of smart cities.
So a lot of big things are happening with that. Uh, and I think the internet of things is very interesting as well. Of course, algorithm makes societies, algorithmic economies are. Uh, there's many things that need to be followed. All right. And geographies, investors might be curious to know which countries where areas are leading the way in innovation right now.
Is it still the us is the middle east. Is it the far east? I think innovation or the years has spread out a little bit. It used to be concentrated in, uh, you know, Silicon valley or in the UK or London or Singapore, but now it has moved from these hubs into worldwide. You've got India, that's innovating and creating solutions.
Uh, you've got, uh, things happening in China from an implementation perspective. The manpower they have, the funding they have a lot is happening in China. Uh, but of course, you know, the vest us and all the developed institutions that have researched the MITs of the world, they definitely are doing incredible breakthrough work, so they definitely need to be followed and we need to see what they're up to.
Um, no, I, I, you, you need to have a global perspective now on being able to target innovation and focusing on where is it coming from? It's happening everywhere. Right? Okay. Finally, I have a fun question. There was a number of scientists or thinkers, Elon Musk being one of them who think that we're suggest that we may already be living in a computer simulation.
Very few people in this world are actually real. The rest of us are just NPC, so to speak in a video game. Well, how much credence to give to that theory? I think Elon Musk is a good entertainer. He's agreed. He's a great guy with a, you know, some great innovative ideas, but I'd take his, uh, all his things.
He says a little bit with a pinch of salt, uh, and, uh, you know, focus on your strengths, building yourself up, expanding your knowledge in today's era of so much disruption, technology and things happening. Uh, I think it's time we go back and start learning the basics of. And take it from there. And what can people expect from Ian Khan in the future?
What are, what are your upcoming films and works? Well, a lot more is coming up. Uh, we have a documentary on the future of work coming up as to what the whole evolution and revolution of future of work is. We have AI the next frontier coming up. Uh, I have a documentary on the microbiome coming up on next year.
So tons of, tons of new things, um, coming up, uh, in the next few months. And then, yeah. Excellent. Let's keep in touch and follow up on those projects. Thank you so much again. Thanks for having me. Thank you. Thank you for watching Kitco news. We'll have more from you in Dubai. Kitco news. Special coverage of the future.
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