Lex Fridman Podcast

#241 – Boris Sofman: Waymo, Cozmo, Self-Driving Cars, and the Future of Robotics

Nov 16, 2021

03:20:48

Creator website

Highlights

AI Chapters

Episode notes

Why Is It So Hard to Run a Robotics Company?

03:13

Is the Hub Intelligent or Robot Friendly?

01:55

How to Get a PhD in Robotics Startups

05:16

Introduction

3min

The All in One Daily Drink for Better Health and Peak Performance

3min

How to Hire the Best Lawyers in Under 48 Hours

1min

Lex Friedman Interview With Boris Softman

2min

The Humanoid Form in a Robotics?

2min

Animate the Human Form in the Real World

2min

Anki - The Vision Behind Anki?

4min

Bringing Video Games to Life

2min

Robotics

2min

10.

Cosmos - A Concept That Scales Way Beyond Entertainment

3min

11.

How Did You Get the Cost Down So Much?

2min

12.

Playing Games With Cosmos

4min

13.

The Seven Dwarves and Robotics

2min

14.

The Future of Cosmic Interaction

5min

15.

Is There a Future for AI?

3min

16.

Is It Possible to Achieve a Depth of Friendship Without Solving General Intelligence?

3min

17.

Is It Possible That AI Will Be a Twelfth of a Billion Dollar Company?

2min

18.

How Did You Manage Your Cash Operations in Q4?

6min

19.

How to Succeed in a Robotics Business

4min

20.

Waymo Robotics - The Role of the Dice

2min

21.

Cosmos Still Lives on Under Dream Labs

3min

22.

How Do You Know When You Got It Right?

3min

23.

Is It Possible?

2min

24.

The Butter Robot Is a Dog That Can Communicate So Much With No Speech

3min

25.

The Uncanny Valley of Humans

4min

26.

Waymo - The Biggest Version of Autonomous Trucking

2min

27.

Waymo Driver Is a Trucking Component That's Like a Branding Perspective

4min

28.

The Long-Term Dream of Way More via Uh the L4 Autonomous Trucking

3min

29.

Automated Trucking

2min

30.

The Canonical Freeway and the Phoenix Area

3min

31.

The Million Questions I Could Ask You

4min

32.

Is the Hub Intelligent or Robot Friendly?

2min

33.

Logistics in Trucking Is Not as Great as It Could Be

4min

34.

Waymo's Road Map to Autonomous Trucking

3min

35.

Waymo Is an Interesting Kind of Merger of Worlds

4min

36.

Long-Haul Trucks - Sensor Suites

2min

37.

So What Role Does Lidar Play in This in This Beautiful Problem of Autonomous Trucking?

2min

38.

Waymo's Lidar Is a Huge Advantage in the Near Range and It's an Incredible Sensor

2min

39.

The Long Tail of Challenges

3min

40.

Early Fusion or Late Fusion?

2min

41.

Machine Learning and Autonomous Trucking

2min

42.

Trucking Data Stress Strategy

2min

43.

Waymo Simulation and Regression Prevention and Protection

4min

44.

What Is the Most Challengesome About Going Driverless?

2min

45.

Waymo Safety Framework for Truck Drivers

3min

46.

The Turing Test Is Like an IQ Test

3min

47.

Driving the Touring Test Is Exactly This Validation Set

2min

48.

Waymo vs Tesla Robotics

4min

49.

L2 Trucks and L2 Driverless Trucks - Is There a Head Start?

1min

50.

The Tesla Approach to Autonomy and Machine Learning

4min

51.

Autonomous Driving Is a Pro and a Con

2min

52.

The Pros and Cons of Driverless Development

2min

53.

Robotics

2min

54.

Autonomy Is a Life and Death Situation

3min

55.

The Future of Transportation and Logistics

4min

56.

The Negative Consequences of Trucking

2min

57.

Automate Logistics and AI in Trucking

5min

58.

Amazon Home Robotics

2min

59.

The Challenges for Consumer Robotics

2min

60.

Amazon Alexa Is a Great Example of That and It's a Good Example of Iterating Uh Kind of Aggressively

2min

61.

Why Is It So Hard to Run a Robotics Company?

3min

62.

Uh Design Is So Important and It Makes All the Difference

2min

63.

Tesla Bot and Humanoid Robotics

2min

64.

Is the Humanoid Form the Right Form for the Factory Environment?

3min

65.

Robotics

2min

66.

Getting a PhD in Robotics at CMU

4min

67.

The Beauty of Robotics

4min

68.

How to Get a PhD in Robotics Startups

5min

69.

The Space of Home Robotics

4min

70.

Robotics - What Advice Would You Give to High School Students?

5min

71.

Boris Softman - Robotics and Robots

2min

Boris Sofman is the Senior Director Of Engineering and Head of Trucking at Waymo, formerly the Google Self-Driving Car project. He was also the CEO and co-founder of Anki, a home robotics company. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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EPISODE LINKS:
Boris’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/bsofman
Boris’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bsofman
Waymo’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/waymo
Waymo’s YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/waymo
Waymo’s Website: https://waymo.com/

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OUTLINE:
Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.
(00:00) – Introduction
(07:32) – Robots in science fiction
(13:13) – Cozmo
(38:28) – AI companions
(45:23) – Anki
(1:10:56) – Waymo Via
(1:42:34) – Sensor suites for long haul trucking
(1:52:30) – Machine learning
(2:10:26) – Waymo vs Tesla
(2:21:02) – Safety and risk management
(2:30:06) – Societal effects of automation
(2:41:11) – Amazon Astro
(2:45:35) – Challenges of the robotics industry
(2:50:03) – Humanoid robotics
(2:57:06) – Advice for getting a PhD in robotics
(3:04:37) – Advice for robotics startups
(3:15:43) – Advice for students