EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW Car
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW Car Giants Shift Gear Shift Automotive provides roadmap for transport revolution The automotive industry is rapidly changing as vehicles evolve away from the kind of cars we are used to seeing on our roads. That’s why IFA is holding the first ever Shift Automotive convention, in conjunction with the Geneva Motor Show. Shift is a series of talks and workshops which provide stakeholders from across the automotive and consumer electronics with opportunities to coinnovate and devise solutions to challenges. The first ever keynote speaker at this historic event is John Schoenbeck, Director of Strategic Partnering at the BMW Group. We took the opportunity to talk to him here at IFA. Is this a good time to tie up the Automotive and Technology industries? I think it’s the perfect time because the Automotive industry needs to think in bigger systems, like intermotor mobility systems on one side, and on the other side power platforms such as smart home and smart office which IFA is all about. So I think it is time to get together, exchange thoughts and ideas and to generate innovation together. At Shift Automotive, what key themes did you discuss in your keynote? I talked about blurring industry boundaries, and how that offers space for innovation. I referred to a couple of close ties and scenarios that have brought the automotive and smart home industry together. And I presented four specific cases of how we work together with different industries and how we're innovating products and services together with partners from those industries. How can the two work together, as the tech has evolved in different directions? In the past years, we were really all about hardware and driving platforms, but as more and more services are placed onto our platforms we need to rethink, because I think then BMW and others are not car manufacturers anymore but mobility providers. So does that change the way people own and live with cars, or what we think of as cars? It will change how people look upon cars and how people use cars, because in the past a car was something very emotional that you bought and you owned. In the future the car will be more like a digital device that you might change more frequently and where the emotional attachment of the customer is not as strong as it was in the past. So yes, I think the use of the car will change. We foresee in the future when automated driving and connected driving is basically provided to the John Schoenbeck Director of Strategic Partnering, BMW Group Designworks masses, to everyone, we will not talk about cars anymore but about people movers that function almost as a moving lifestyle space. Your job is about partnerships, what does that mean for BMW? Who are you reaching out to? As Director of Strategic Partnering of Design Works, my job really is to find new dialogue and platforms together with the electrical industry and electrical companies in the vicinity of mobility. So everything that is to do with mobility is interesting for BMW, and on the other side we're investigating the digital space, digital interaction. So by reaching out, establishing platforms, by driving dialogues we hope that we drive new ideas together, and again remember in the beginning I said we live in systems that basically reach out to all of us, so we need to understand how we solve problems together. IT IS TIME TO GET TOGETHER, EXCHANGE THOUGHTS AND IDEAS AND TO GENERATE INNOVATION TOGETHER 14
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW OUR PHILOSOPHY, LIKE COINNOVATION, IS TO WORK WITH PARTNERS TO PROVIDE THE BEST SERVICE TO CUSTOMERS At IFA 2018, LG president and chief technology officer Dr I.P. Park gave an opening keynote speech centred on the company’s mantra – Evolve, Connect, Open. Afterwards, he sat down with us and talked about the company’s emphasis on AI, which has been realised across its product range via the ThinQ brand. LG has grown tremendously over the years, to become a global consumer electronics company making 100s of product types. The shift from analogue to digital was important in terms of maintaining quality but now AI is doing so much more. As products become smarter and smarter, and learn about the user from data, it is changing the paradigm of products. As soon as you buy a traditional product it depreciates, but data adds value to products. The more you use an AIenabled product, the higher the value goes. In this way, AI will add to business. This is what we call Evolution at LG. Also important to LG are Connection and Openness. Can you tell us about the security implications of AI and IoT? We take security and privacy very seriously with connected products. We make sure we keep customer privacy and security as tightly as possible. We don’t collect and store customer profile information. We only observe usage data to make products smarter. Some people fear that networked products are inherently insecure because they are connected, but LG makes sure it has the latest security in every product. Even if there is a security error or vulnerability, we have a security response team to stay alert and respond as soon as possible. It is an ongoing battle, but we have signed a collaborative agreement with the Open Connectivity Foundation, a group of 400 members with IoT devices. It is an industry wide platform that is designed to make sure we have standard mechanisms on security. Where is the market in terms of AI? It is at a very early stage. When people talk about AI, they usually mean voice interaction like Alexa – LG also has a good assistant that is getting better and better. But there is some way to go before devices become as intelligent as humans. Soon LG’s paradigm shift to AI CTO discusses artificial intelligence, security and co-operation WE MAKE SURE WE KEEP CUSTOMER PRIVACY AND SECURITY AS TIGHTLY AS POSSIBLE. we will see other interfaces around vision, gesture and biometrics. Can you tell us about your tests with robots at Incheon airport? Robots are an important new strategic business area. We have 14 service robots at Incheon airport, a service we started a couple of weeks ago. Airports are a hostile environment, acoustically noisy with thousands of people moving around. So the robots have to avoid a lot of obstacles and quickly interact with people with information from the cloud. We have had requests from hotels, malls, banks etc so we are trying to understand how to meet the wider demand for robots. Will consumers be able to take data with them if they upgrade/change products? In theory yes. I would like to say that the transfer of all the knowledge and information from machine to machine will happen, but it depends on policy of the company that makes it. In my view, AI should be customer-centric not company-centric, so my message to the industry is don’t be self-centred. Let’s think of what we can do all together to provide the best solution to all of our customers. How does the IFA emphasis on coinnovation fit with LG’s strategy? One of LG’s three aspects is openness. We are looking at a different world compared to 10 years ago. The world is too complex and diverse – we can’t do everything alone, no matter how many resources we have. So our philosophy, like coinnovation, is to work with partners to provide the best service to customers. What investments are you making in AI research? We have many R&D labs around the world – in Korea, Silicon Valley, Moscow, St Petersburg, Bangalore, and next month we open a lab in Toronto. We are adding more and more AI capabilities but not just in our internal research. Openness means we also work with our industrial partners, universities and so on www.ifa-international.org IFA International • Wednesday 5 th September 2018 15
