Good Disruption: Episode 15 - Autonomous Vehicles

Gen Xers will remember Knight Rider, a television show in the 1980s about a crime fighter who battles bad guys with the help of a technologically advanced Pontiac Firebird Trans Am that drives itself and talks, all powered by artificial intelligence. At that time, the idea of a self-driving car was futuristic; but now 40 years later, some elements of autonomy are available in passenger vehicles as a standard offering. Just how close are we to fully automated vehicles and how will transportation itself change as a result?

Mike and Yael talk with Will Shepherdson, Darden alum (MBA’21) Product Manager at Waymo, and Madhur Behl, an Associate Professor in Computer Science at UVA. Waymo operates autonomous ride-hailing services in Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Austin. Professor Behl conducts research at the confluence of Machine Learning, Predictive Control, and Artificial Intelligence with applications in Cyber-Physical Systems, Autonomous Systems, Robotics, and Smart Cities.

Look for new episodes of Good Disruption on the first Monday of each month!

Podcast photo image of Waymo vehicle courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.