Lex Fridman Podcast

Chris Urmson: Self-Driving Cars at Aurora, Google, CMU, and DARPA

Jul 22, 2019

In this conversation, Chris Urmson, CEO of Aurora Innovation and former CTO of Google's self-driving team, shares his journey through the DARPA challenges and his insights on autonomous vehicle technology. He discusses the evolution of self-driving cars, highlighting advancements like HD mapping and LiDAR's role in safety. Urmson dives into the complexities of urban driving versus highways, emphasizing the importance of human factors in technology adoption. He advocates for a human-centric approach in developing safer, more effective autonomous vehicles.

44:59

Creator website

Episode guests

Chris Urmson

AI Chapters

Episode notes

Intro

2min

Navigating the Autonomous Vehicle Hurdles

4min

Advancements in Autonomous Vehicle Technology

8min

LiDAR and the Future of Autonomous Vehicles

5min

Navigating Level Two Autonomy

17min

Navigating the Complexities of Urban vs. Highway Driving for Self-Driving Technology

2min

Navigating the Future of Self-Driving Cars

7min

Chris Urmson was the CTO of the Google Self-Driving Car team, a key engineer and leader behind the Carnegie Mellon autonomous vehicle entries in the DARPA grand challenges and the winner of the DARPA urban challenge. Today he is the CEO of Aurora Innovation, an autonomous vehicle software company he started with Sterling Anderson, who was the former director of Tesla Autopilot, and Drew Bagnell, Uber’s former autonomy and perception lead. This conversation is part of the Artificial Intelligence podcast. If you would like to get more information about this podcast go to https://lexfridman.com/ai or connect with @lexfridman on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Medium, or YouTube where you can watch the video versions of these conversations. If you enjoy the podcast, please rate it 5 stars on iTunes or support it on Patreon.