Android father Andy Rubin says AI is the next computing platform, but it’s at least 10-20 years away

Largely heralded as the creator of Android (and as of last year, no longer at Google), Andy Rubin yesterday took to the hotseat at the Code/Mobile conference to talk the future of computing. Now founder and CEO of tech startup incubator Playground Global, his job is to know what’s coming in tech “after mobile” — and he had some very insightful comments indeed…

Andy clearly believes that we’re on the brink of the next shift in computing, citing his own belief that every 10 to 20 years, we see a major change in platforms. “First of all, mobile’s not going away, so everyone can relax,” he said. “It is your main screen, and it will remain your main screen, because it’s so personal and on you all the time.”

But clearly, he thinks AI is the direction that things are moving.

“There is a point in time — I have no idea when it is — it won’t be in the next ten years, or twenty years — where there is some form of AI, for lack of a better term, that will be the next computing platform.”

He also spent some time talking about how we’ve seen a very important shift in the way we buy mobile phones. The average consumer no longer buys phones subsidized through contracts, but on payment plans. “That’s the biggest change in the last ten years,” he said. “It makes the US look a lot more like China. 80% of phones in China are sold open market, and we’re at the beginning, but the US could look a lot more like that.”