Or driving your car to work, just by sitting back in the driver's seat and thinking about it.
Cheng Yueh Liu has taken one of his first steps towards this futuristic world, of which he may one day be the creator.
At a time when the Dunedin 18-year-old should be celebrating the end of NCEA level 3 examinations, he is celebrating passing his 200-level University of Canterbury advanced engineering and mathematics papers - all with an A-plus.
In 2009, when he should have been sitting NCEA level 2, he sat NCEA level 3 for the second time and received an excellence endorsement, five scholarships in NCEA level 4, was co-dux of John McGlashan College and, to top his year off, he retained an A-plus average in mathematics papers at Canterbury University - all before he had started his final year at secondary school.
Not bad for a Taiwanese boy who came to New Zealand aged 5, unable to speak English.
Not surprisingly, Cheng Yueh decided to skip year 13 and head straight to Canterbury University.
This year, he will begin his quest to create human interface robotics technology by studying and specialising in 300-level mechatronics (robotics) at the university.
From there, he hopes to gain entry to one of the world's top engineering universities - Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States - to do a PhD in advanced mechanical engineering.
"It could lead on to a very broad variety of careers.
"It can be anything from factory machinery to human interface robotics.
"I would like to design systems that connect humans to the digital world. Perhaps, that may mean giving humans the ability to control a vehicle by thought."
Cheng Yueh was humble about his academic success, and tried to downplay it by saying it was just one small step in what would be a very long journey for him.
"It's very warming for me to do this. "But this is just the beginning of a lifelong, far-sighted challenge."
