Ep 107: Off-Road Autonomy & Saving Soldiers' Lives with Overland AI CEO Byron Boots

Self-driving is an immensely complex challenge; Tesla, Waymo, and others are locked in a years-long race. But equally challenging, and less known, is the race to develop off-road self-driving. How do you build systems that can navigate unmapped terrain, dodge boulders, and see behind trees — all at high speeds? And how can our military deploy this technology to enhance lethality and save soldiers' lives?

We discuss these exciting breakthroughs with Byron Boots, Co-Founder & CEO of Overland AI — one of the most exciting new U.S. defense companies. Byron holds a PhD in machine learning from Carnegie Mellon and also teaches machine learning and robotics at the University of Washington.

We begin with Byron's background as a philosopher-builder, and how he created the top ground autonomy research group in partnership with the Department of Defense. We dive into the engineering challenges of off-road self-driving, and Byron reveals what sets Overland apart from the competition. Next, we cover the strategic significance of Overland's work and how it will abstract humans from dangerous ground operations, like breaching, and transform warfare. If Overland is successful, thousands of autonomous vehicles, each with an elite operator controlling his own smart fleet, could replace the traditional ground campaigns of tanks, infantrymen, and heavy casualties — and that's something we can all be optimistic about.

00:00 Episode Intro

01:30 Byron’s Philosopher Builder Background

05:32 DARPA challenge & Overland origin story

08:15 On-road vs off-road self-driving

13:08 How ground autonomy changes warfare

18:59 Engineering challenges in off-road autonomy

23:30 AI-enabled swarming & the future of warfare

29:03 Building with the Pentagon

32:37 Optimism for the future