The Next Billion Cars – Autonomous Vehicles: Learning to Crawl

In 2016, Telsa made a video touting their ‘self-driving’ software – faked. Every major manufacturer promised self-driving cars by 2021 – none are even close. Will the nirvana of driverless cars ever come – or will it remain a temping mirage, forever just over the horizon? Mark is joined by co-host Sally Dominguez and Special Correspondent Drew Smith as we speak to GIO boffin Steve Cratchley, and reconnect with Ken Goldberg – does Ken still believe autonomous vehicles are a decade or more away? Are we advancing toward autonomy – or stalled in the high-speed lane?

Here’s the deeply disturbing footage of the 8-car pileup on San Francisco’s Bay Bridge on Thanksgiving Day – possibly due to a failure in a Tesla’s self-driving feature.

A Tesla engineer testifies that the firm’s 2016 video touting its self-driving software was faked. That led to Tesla warning its investors that it’s being investigated by the US Justice Department.

Mercedes is the first car maker in the US cleared for ‘Level 3’ autonomy – in Nevada.

And back in 2022, Mercedes told the press it would be taking full legal responsibility for its driver assistance features…

And of course y’all should be listening to Drew’s other podcast, “Looking Out“…

Thanks to series sponsors GIO and BMW Electromobility.

Episode 1.13: Rise of the Robots with Ken Goldberg

Are the robots going to rise up in a “Singularity” that will first threaten our jobs, then our very existence? Dr. Ken Goldberg, Chair of the Robotics program at the University of California, Berkeley, tells us that while things are moving quickly, we’re moving into a world of ‘multiplicity’ – where multiple intelligences grow together to create a uniquely diverse world of human and machine minds.

Here’s a sample:

Ken wrote about the irrational fear of robots for the Wall Street Journal – you can read his piece here: The Robot-Human Alliance – WSJ

Listen on iTunes

Listen on PodcastOne.com.au