Think it is tremendous to have such an incredible lineup of speakers a joining us, from washington, d. C. To everywhere in between. We are so honored to have all of you. We have people who up flown in to attend. , thisat the moment now moment is equivalent to the horse and buggy and automobile. And it a true revolution is going to be coming sooner than any of us realize. Things are going to be changing for the better in ways that affect us and in ways we have not even started to think about. We wanted to bring people together to not only think about the benefits of self driving also the implications of how we need to think about redoing the urban landscape. To think about the Economic Needs of workers who will be displaced and all of the benefits and problems that come with this incredible revolution that is going to transform our society. We are so excited to have you here and thank you for coming. I wanted to give you an overview of the day. I wanted to invite some people up to give some remarks. First of all, i wanted to ignore knowledge the fact that this event would not be happening for those of you who you may not have known what a special mayor this man is arid is. He is someone who has been a bit like obama or bill clinton in l. A. In that he is hire the best of smart people, who are expanding las horizons in new and interesting ways. Without any further a do, let me welcome to the stage Jason Crockett from the Mayors Office of economic development. [applause] good morning, everyone. Thank you so much for hosting this event at the city hall. For the next round, you should kick it off with your rendition of is change going to come . Have the choir behind you. That would be a great start. On behalf of the mayor, it is my pleasure to welcome you to city hall. The city of los angeles is thought to be at the forefront of transportation. In a city where 70 of the community drives to work, 90 hours of traffic spent sitting in their cars and nearly 3. 7 billion in parking costs paid, we are ready to forge a new path. One that brings together leaders in the auto industry, planners from the city, and policymakers to solve mobility challenges brought on by population growth and population density spread across our region. Just last year, the department of transportation released its a thety plan, making as first city making l. A. The first city to actively address policy around self driving vehicles. You have a leader among this administration that wants to serve as a partner to you, ready to explore the capacity of Technological Advancement of Autonomous Vehicles to solve one of the regions most pressing challenges. Thank you for all the hard work you have done to bring this day together. Thank you to all of the honored guests, including councilman mikeon an mike on it bonin. Thank you all for joining us today. We are excited to be part of this great thank you, everyone. Thank you to everyone with the Mayors Office and they have an fantastic to work with they have been fantastic to work with. Big thanks are due to the Southern California of associate governors. I was so scared by the numbers put into the report years ago, realizing how things were already quite bad in l. A. Clear a Critical Role in supporting this event today. They have done some rate reports. Some great reports. Thank you and it is an honor to be here to talk about the future of transportation. Skagt to represent not only but also San Bernardino county. It is important the government leaders are working handinhand with Tech Companies and Transportation Companies because you need that infrastructure to be planned, along with the future of what transportation is all about. Scag is very honored to be part of that. We want to be your partner going forward, to make sure we, as government, is there. Thank you for having me. Thank you very much, mr. Supervisor here at mr. Supervisor. Knowledge our partners as well it knowledge wledge our partners as well. Were honored to have them helping out. I want to take a moment before we launch into a our lineup we launch into our lineup. We have all had our own experiences over the years, on the road, in los angeles or across the world. We sometimes forget what a dangerous thing driving is. We have to do it. We have to put up with it. We are not perfect at the wheel. We accept what is not acceptable. If you think about it, the number of deaths because of highway road accidents is 1. 2 5 million, 2. 25 of all deaths globally. The Financial Times had an article suggesting we kill off the greatest killer of all times. For those of you who flow out airline comingn down every day. We would say, this is too dangerous, it is immoral. When, very soon, it becomes possible to have self driving cars take away these deaths because they will be much safer than humans. As much as we like to think we are infallible, maybe we will be at the point where it becomes immoral to allow a civilian in a vehicle. It is not something everyone has to do. It may be something we look back on like, how did we allow that . It is going to be fascinating to see how society changes. Not only through deaths, but all the suffering that is caused through injuries. There are huge impacts. Theyre going to be challenges that come with health driving cars are we have already seen incredible political problems in this country because of automation. It will have great impacts to truck driving, taxi driving, even uber will not need drivers anymore. We will not need any more yard doctors perhaps, or as many police or firemen anymore er doctors perhaps, or as many police or firemen. Perhaps Car Dealerships will scale back. It is like looking back and , will this go away question mark go away . We have to be sure we take the time to think about how we will help each other, for people who lose their jobs and the incredible economic disruption happening across the nation. Tend to not able to have these deep policy discussions but we have to find a way to do that and to realize, this is coming, sooner rather than later. We think things will be disrupted, there is a lot on the road ahead. I dont mean to be too negative. Im incredibly excited about the benefits Autonomous Vehicles will bring. Not only Traffic Safety but convenience. Obviously, wouldnt it be great to watch a movie instead of just 405 . Ng on the take a nap. Benefits. Of. Ost comes down for delivery new startups will transform society with services we cannot imagine. It is incredible. Lay, we make sure we have the Self Driving Car Companies come down and test them. , we make sure we have the Self Driving Car Companies come down and test them. I wanted to introduce some one who is more so than anyone in the world, responsible for driving this revolution. Was the former director of googles selfdriving car project. It is now called waymo. This happened superfast and some people believe the cousin of the believeoogle did that because of the work that 2 million, we may see lives saved because it is happening faster than we thought. Saving 2 million lives by bringing Autonomous Vehicles more quickly is changing the world. Urmson is leading a secretive startup. You will be as excited as us to learn some of those secrets. It is an Amazing Company which has engaged not only chris, but also top minds from uber, from tesla, and from others. Chris has a great history. We will get into that in our discussion. Were excited to have him down here. Let me ask all of you to give a warm welcome to chris urmson. [applause] chris, thank you so much were being here in l. A. Take us back. 10 years ago, you were here for the darpa challenge. Was . The audience what that sure. Thank you very much. For the imitation and to the Mayors Office for hosting us. It is not clear if i will be able to get my head through the door after all that. 10 years ago, even longer, 14 years ago, the idea was to drive a car from los angeles to las vegas across the desert, without , without a midget hiding inside. Help menwas, can we and women that are in harms way drive supply convoys in dangerous parts of the world. It was announced as the grand challenge. No one believed we could do it in a timeframe that was meaningful. We went out for the first challenge. It was about 150 miles. The team i was the technical director for got stuck, burst into flames, and that was it. Then, we drove into three fence post. It was an awesome day. Hourd drive 40 miles an across the desert, with nobody on board. The media said, this is a disaster heard those who were part of it, felt the same way. The Defense Department said no, this is a big step forward. Come back in a year and see how you do. In 2000 and five, a had the second challenge and five teams met that challenge. Coming, this stuff is and we can do something meaningful with it someday. Over the years, across various challenges, you had experiences where your car would flip over the night before. Absolutely. This was one of the tougher parts. We were on some of the rough experimental. Was the first year, we were trying to get the vehicle to drive 150 miles for the first time. We had it on this oval track and we did simple math. We said if we drive 30 Miles Per Hour, it will take five hours. If we drive 50 Miles Per Hour, it will take three hours. We picked 50 Miles Per Hour does it seemed better. Because it seemed that her. Hit atwo hours in, it soft patch of dirt and rolled over. And we graduates didnt got the thing turned the right way up. We did this again a year later. We got smarter in many ways. This time, the vehicle finished where we could not chase it with suvs. We had to chase it with humvees because the ground was too rough. The team that was testing it said, it is going so well. Why dont we have a drive itself back . Part wayugh that through that, it hit a barrel. We have come a long way. Things are looking good. Guys won a Million Dollar prize as part of that, right . Challenge, a team from stanford one. I was at carnegie mellon. Giant, Million Dollar novelty check. A year or two later, there was a third competition, at the old airbase. This time, vehicles had to drive on their side of the road. They had to stop for stop signs. They paid a bunch of stunt drivers to drive cars around to create traffic. This was exciting. Our team did win this. We came first that year. We also got to witness the first robotic car crash. Cornell and m. I. T. Crashed into each other. Arounda historic day all for self driving cars. Environment,ademic you do have any sense that you would be at this point where , not seeing these things just in the role of academics, that something that is about to transform the Automotive Industry . Back then, we did not understand the implications of what this would mean for improving lives and safety on the road. The visceral benefit will happen to folks who do not have to sit in traffic or who can get from a to b when they could not before your it before. When you start this, you do not understand how hard it is. Our aspiration was to do this even more quickly. That was naive. It was a hard problem. It is incredible to see how the world has changed over the last five years. To go from that world of academia, tell us about how you got approached by google and how this got started . I was a professor at carnegie mellon. This was back when google was a Search Engine and did not have android and the other amazing rings the company does Amazing Things the company does. I was approached and my reaction was, why . After spending some time with them and understanding they are in Engineering Company and they want to solve problems, i joined the company in 2009. We did not talk at all publicly 2011. Almost over those seven and a half 2009 to 2016, weep pushed we pushed the technology and change the perception of when it could happen and what it could mean. Now, i am on a new venture with a new company. I am so glad you mentioned it. Innovationut aurora and the solution you will be providing. What secrets can you reveal . Secrets. Re what it has been amazing to see the way the industry has started to embrace this. Or many years, this was perceived as sciencefiction, as something that could not happen. Ran was one of the first people to really understand this and to understand why it was important to move forward. Over the last five years, it has gone from, that is silly to i think that is interesting to i think that is really important. Amazing. Try is really there is a lot a popular press about the battle a twinge of troy and Silicon Valley and the detroitattle between and Silicon Valley. The amount of technology and process engineering required to make that happen is mindboggling. It requires a very specific type of process and specific type of commitment to make that happen. Is notnd of commitment particularly compatible with software. That is where aurora can help. If a thing comes off the line , about onceny parts every two minutes and it works for 15 years, i cannot imagine an app in Silicon Valley doing that. We would like to bring that innovative, Software Side of the house and partner with Automotive Companies. Our company will be providing the software that will work with those vehicles and they will deliver those vehicles to their customers to realize these benefits of safety and mobility. As you think about that culture, it is something where these two cultures are very different. We do see the public conflict talked about. Isnt it fair to say that it has been tough for some of these big automakers to attract the engineering talent that you had been able to attract at google and that now, people are eager to break down your door and joined the team . That comes down to that process you have to have in place. It leads to a certain type of culture that is productive but it is not a culture that lends itself to Software Talent that we need to have to solve the problem. By building this kind of company, we are able to attract this kind of talent. We can marry the best of both worlds. We can marry the genius of Automotive Industry and the incredible capability we can harness in the tech sector to make this happen. The am curious to tell story of how you came together with sterling andrew sterling and drew. How did you come together . It is pretty exciting and fortuitous. The company was founded by the through sterling anderson. It turns out we knew each other for 18 years. Yearsnt the last 18 pushing this state of the art in Machine Learning and robotics and reinforcement learning. When you think about the Core Technologies for self driving vehicles, it is that deep understanding of Core Technologies applied to real world data. Sterling anderson went out in he wassulting world and pulled off to Program Model x for tesla. He has experienced shipping something. It is the closest thing to a self driving vehicle out there in the world today. When i was trying to figure out what to do next, i was not clear when i left google if the right thing to do was start a company. Their experiences complimented my own so well. It was an amazing foundation. From there, we have been able to attract an Amazing Group of talent. Hopefully, you will be opening an Engineering Office here on the west side of l. A. There is a lot of great talent out of caltech. Our next speaker is a caltech graduate, herself. Speaking of l. A. , here we are in the city famed for its part culture park culture. You look outside and you see parking lots everywhere. A little bit about how self driving cars are going to remake the urban landscape landscape . That opportunity to reclaim our cities is profound. If you look in a city like los angeles, 30 to 40 of the space is parking space. Today, there are basically three spots for every car your there is your parking spot at home, at work, and at a shopping center. If we can come up with shared Mobility Systems that are enabled i self driving technology, we can start to reclaim that landscape. We can deploy them as part of Smart Transportation networks. We can use light rail, rapid lastit buses and feed the mile with smaller vehicles that are Cost Effective to operate and provide transportation at a lower cost and take those urban eyesores parking is important but anyone who loves urine soaked concrete is probably a sick person and if we can turn that into park space, imagine the social good and the financial implication and the opportunities for our cities to be that much more livable. It is profound. California infamous for traffic but also infamous for our housing crunch. Housingtunity for more and more parks and Everything Else we need. Talk about what excites you most right now about what is going to change, be transformed, because of this revolution . Im going to fight a little bit by which fudge a little bit. One of the most exciting things is, if you think about transportation, it is fundamental. Anything you are wearing or you use was either dug up out of the ground and grown and that it was put on a vehicle. Transportation is fundamental to our society. If we can find ways to reduce ,he cost and improve the safety it is hard to imagine how broad the implications will be. If you look a