Transcripts For CSPAN Future Of Self-Driving Automobiles 201

Transcripts For CSPAN Future Of Self-Driving Automobiles 20180102

To establish a safety framework for Autonomous Vehicles. At this event, hosted by techfire, in los angeles. This is two hours. David good afternoon, everyone. Thank you all for coming. My name is david murphy. I am the founder and ceo of techfire. We have done over 30 events over the years, and this is the one im most excited about. I am the founder and ceo of techfire. I think it is tremendous to have such an incredible lineup of speakers 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. Were at the moment now, this moment is equivalent to the horse and buggy and automobile. This is a true revolution and it 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. Gs 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 cars, but also the implications of how we need to think about redoing the urban landscape. Rethinking 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 acknowledge the fact that this event would not be happening without the los angeles mayor. You joining us from outside of los angeles, you may not know what a special mayor this man is. He is someone who has been a bit like obama or bill clinton in l. A. In that he has hired the best staff, a lot of smart people, who are expanding las horizons in new and interesting ways. Without any further ado, let me welcome to the stage Jason Crockett from the Mayors Office of economic development. Jason. [applause] jason good morning, everyone. I guess it is afternoon now. Thank you so much for hosting this event at city hall. For the next round, focused on 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 Los Angeles City hall. The city of los angeles has sought to be at the forefront of transportation. In a city where 70 of the Community Drive 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 here in the city. One that brings together leaders in the auto industry, tech innovators, 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 Mobility Plan, making l. A. The first city to actively address policy around self driving vehicles. The future is now. You have a leader among this administration that wants to you have a leader, along with 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 to techfire and david for all the hard work you have done to bring this day together. Thank you to all of the honored guests, including councilman mike bonin. Thank you to you all for joining us today. We are excited to be hosting. Thank you, everyone. [applause] thank you to everyone with the Mayors Office and they have been fantastic to work with. I want to pick on what just i want to pick up on what jason said. Big thanks are due to the Southern California association of governors. I was so scared by the numbers put into the report years ago, realizing how things were already quite bad in l. A. Scag plays a Critical Role in supporting this event today and leading us to think big. I would like to invite up a board member. [applause] thank you and it is an honor to be here to talk about the future of transportation. I get to represent not only scag but also San Bernardino county. It is the largest county in the United States. 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. [applause] david thank you very much, mr. Supervisor. I want to acknowledge our partners as well. Mobility 21, they do incredible work. They havent they have had great panelists. Events on Autonomous Vehicles over the years were , honored to have them helping out. I want to take a moment before we launch into our lineup. Just reflect on this moment, where we are. 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. Driving is something we have to do. We have to put up with it. We humans are not perfect at the wheel. We have come to accept what maybe is not acceptable. When you think about the number of deaths because of highway worldccidents around the is 1. 25 million, 2. 25 of all deaths globally. The Financial Times had an column suggesting maybe Driverless Cars we kill off the greatest killer invention. It is like an airplane falling out of the sky every day. For those of you who flown out here, imagine an Airline Coming down every day. We would say, this is too dangerous, it is immoral. Yet, that is what is happening on the roads. 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 adept, we are not very good drivers at all. Maybe someday we will be at the point where it becomes immoral to allow humans to be at the wheel. Maybe it will be like a pilots license where it is not something everyone has to do. It may be something we look back on mike cigarettes, 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, costs involved in accidents. Huge impacts. Theyre going to be challenges that come with self driving cars. 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 er we will not need as many er doctors perhaps, or as many police or firemen. Perhaps Car Dealerships will scale back. We want have used car salesman or body shops. It is like looking back and saying, sure, we have the horse and carriage industry go away. All these new areas came to fill the market. We have to be sure, as a society, that we take the time to think about how we are going to help each other across the nation, people who lose their jobs and the incredible economic disruption happening across the nation. This is like universal basic income. We tend to not able to have these deep policy discussions right now, but we have to find a way to do that and to realize, this is coming, sooner rather than later. And if we think things will be disrupted, there is a lot on the road ahead. A lot of things to think about. I dont mean to be too negative. Im incredibly excited about the benefits Autonomous Vehicles will bring. Not only Traffic Safety but convenience. Warner bros. Just announced a partnership with intel. Obviously, wouldnt it be great to watch a movie instead of just sitting on the 405 . Take a nap. Our parents or grandparents who arent able to drive. All sorts of benefits. Cost comes down for delivery. New startups that will transform society with services we cannot imagine. It is incredibly exciting. Angeles, we make sure we have the Self Driving Car Companies come down and test them. Car culture, it is time to make sure los angeles is in the forefront of the revolution. Without any further or do, i wanted to introduce someone who is more so than anyone in the world, responsible for driving this revolution. No pun intended. Chris urmson was the former director of googles selfdriving car project. It is now called waymo. They are already announcing they are hitting the streets of phoenix with the technology. This happened superfast, and some people believe that because of the work that google did, we may see 2 million lives saved because it is happening faster than it otherwise would. It is incredible. It is incredible betterment of humanity. Saving 2 million lives by bringing Autonomous Vehicles more quickly is changing the world. Chris urmson is leading a secretive startup. You will be as excited as us to learn some of those secrets. This 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. Without any further ado, let me ask all of you to give a warm welcome to chris urmson. [applause] chris, thank you so much for being here in l. A. Take us back. 10 years ago, you were here for the darpa challenge. Tell the audience what that was . How that was the kickoff for the modern self driving revolution. Chris sure. Thank you very much. Before you start, just make you for the invitation today and to the Mayors Office for hosting us, and for the introduction. 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 Defense Department announced the first grand challenge. The idea was to drive a car from los angeles to las vegas across the desert without remote control, without a midget hiding inside. The idea was, can we help men and women that are in harms way driving supply convoys in unpleasant places of the world . It was announced as the grand challenge. It was akin to wennberg crossing the atlantic. 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. We went about seven miles. The team i was the technical director for got stuck, burst into flames, and that was it. That was after we drove through three fence posts. It was an awesome day. We did drive 40 miles an hour across the desert with nobody on board. While the media said this is a disaster. 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 2005, they had the second challenge and five teams met that challenge. We said, this stuff is coming and we can do something meaningful with it someday. David over the years, across the areas challenges, didnt you have experiences where your car would flip over the night before . Chris i see. You give to the ego and you take away. Absolutely. This was one of the tougher parts. We were out and the desert on some of the rough roads and this , was experimental. The first year we were out there, 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 an hour, because that seemed better. About two laps in, it hit a soft patch of dirt and rolled over. We work graduates didnt and we got the thing turned the right way up. We entered it into the competition. It is probably part of the reason why it rode through three fence posts before bursting into flames. We did this again a year later. We got smarter in many ways. This time, the vehicle finished a 150 mile loop where we could not chase it with suvs. We had to chase it with humvees because the ground was too rough. It finished the 150 miles. The team that was testing it said it is going so well. Why dont we have it drive itself back . Part way through that, it hit a ramp and did a barrel roll. We have come a long way. We havent parked anything on the roof in a decade or so. At least my team. Things are looking good. David you guys won a Million Dollar prize as part of that, right . Chris yeah, that second challenge, a team from stanford won. I was at carnegie mellon. They got a giant, Million Dollar novelty check. A year and a half later, they had a third competition out at victorville at the old airbase. This time, the 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 vehicles had to interact with. This was exciting. Our team did win this. We one 2 million actually. On dollars we won 2 million actually. We came first that year. We also got to witness the first robotic car crash. Cornell and m. I. T. Crashed into each other. It was a historic day all around for self driving cars. David in that academic environment, did you have any sense that you would be at this point where were seeing these things, not just in the role of academics,ealm of but something that is about to transform the Automotive Industry . Chris it is tricky. 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 when they never used to be able to. Quickly,appened very but when you started this you do , not understand how hard it is. Our aspiration was to do this even more quickly. Looking back, that was naive. It turns out, this is a hard problem. It has been incredible to see how the world has changed over the last five years. David to go from that world of academia to the commercial world, tell us about how you got approached by google and how this got started and maybe how long you are doing things the hind the scenes before the public announcement . Chris i was a professor at carnegie mellon. This was back when google was a just was just a Search Engine and did not have android and the other Amazing Things the company does. I was approached and my reaction was, why . Youre a Search Engine, why would you do anything in this space . After spending some time with them and understanding they are an Engineering Company and they want to solve problems, i joined the company in 2009. We did not talk at all publicly until almost 2011. Over that seven and a half years, from 2009 to 2016, we pushed the technology and change the perception of this technology, of when it could happen and what it could mean. Now, i am on a new venture with a new Company Helping the automotive world come to terms with this and advance their ability in this space. David i am so glad you mentioned it. Tell us about Aurora Innovation and the solution you will be providing. What secrets can you reveal . [laughter] chris not sure what secrets. It has been amazing to see the way the Automotive Industry has started to embrace this. For many years, this was perceived as sciencefiction, as something that could not happen. Bran was one of the early 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. We should do something about that. The Automotive Industry is really amazing. There is a lot a popular press about the battle between detroit and Silicon Valley. The new eating the old and that kind of a thing. It is just garbage. The magic that goes into actually making an automobile is incredible. The amount of technology and process and engineering required to make that happen is mindboggling. It requires a very specific type of processes and specific type of commitment to make that happen. That kind of commitment to process is not particularly compatible with software. With a new, innovative software. That is where aurora can help. We have an immense amount of respect for what it takes to build an automobile and ship those products. The fact that a thing comes off the line with that many parts, sorry basically, once every two minutes and it works for 15 years, i cannot imagine an app from Silicon Valley doing that. We would like to bring that innovative, Software Side of the house that understands how to after these complicated Software Problems 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. David as you think about that culture that is required, 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 now that people are eager to break down your door and joined the team . And join the team . Chris that comes down to that process you have to ha

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