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At our client conference last month, I spoke about big data and what it will mean for commercial real estate (CRE). CRE's big data will not be long. It will be wide, and it will not be based on the digital exhaust of human activity. I've summarized my thoughts in a previous post.

Another major disruptive force in CRE will be autonomous driving, addressed cogently by CBRE’s Spencer Levy and Jeremy Neuer in this recent podcast. One point I would add is that we've had "autonomous flying" for about a generation. Its early adoption was made possible by planes’ considerably greater operating latitude (in both space and time!). This additional latitude must be managed nonetheless—by humans and machines doing air traffic control.

For autonomous driving, asking algorithms with objective functions to make the many roadway decisions that arise—including those that boil down to choosing a passenger's life or a pedestrian's—comes with substantial challenges, both technical and ethical.