

#28 - Taavi Rõivas 🇪🇪 (Auve Tech) on the future of driverless cars & AI, Estonia’s unicorns and government-business interaction
Taavi Rõivas is the Chairman of Auve Tech, an Estonian producer and operator of self-driving vehicles and autonomous transportation systems that are already operational on public roads. He is also former Prime Minister of Estonia, a long-time member of the Estonian Parliament, and an international public speaker on e-government, cyber security, AI, and other related topics.
In this episode, we discuss the development and promise of the self-driving vehicle industry, the interaction of government and business and how to clone Estonia’s success, the future of work and retirement as well as the risks associated with the development of AI and increasing government power.
The topics covered in this episode with Timestamps
[01:45] - INTRODUCTION, AUVE TECH, AND THE SELF-DRIVING INDUSTRY
- Reinventing last-mile delivery of people
- Use Cases for driverless vehicles
- Estonia as a hub for driverless vehicle companies
- Funding of development for such high-risk business
[25:00] - ON GOVERNMENT AND BUSINESS
- What’s behind Estonia’s success from the state perspective
- Practical reasons for going digital
- Vision for cross-border digital public services
- Legacy systems are an excuse
- Digital adoption psychology
- Role of the government for business environment development
- Example of Finland as a historical roadmap
- The promise of the Baltics as a remote work paradise
- Unicorn nation and if the govt helped
- How to keep on the success path
- Challenges in the labor market and migration
[1:01:20] - ON THE FUTURE OF WORK, RETIREMENT, AI AND GOVERNMENT POWER
- Jobs that are ripe for automation
- Universal basic income
- Work longevity and a different “retirement”
- Challenges of AI development
- Lessons from the pandemic
To reach out to Taavi use:
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taavi-r%C3%B5ivas-18399b134/
Find out more on https://www.pursuitofscrappiness.co/
Support for this episode comes from Nexpay > https://paynexpay.com/
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Find out more on https://www.pursuitofscrappiness.co/