Boris Sofman: Waymo, Cozmo, Self-Driving Cars, and the Future of Robotics | Lex Fridman Podcast #241

Boris Sofman is the Senior Director Of Engineering and Head of Trucking at Waymo, formerly the Google Self-Driving Car project. He was also the CEO and co-founder of Anki, a home robotics company. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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EPISODE LINKS:
Boris's Twitter: twitter.com/bsofman
Boris's LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/bsofman
Waymo's Twitter: twitter.com/waymo
Waymo's YouTube: youtube.com/waymo
Waymo's Website: waymo.com/

PODCAST INFO:
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OUTLINE:
0:00 - Introduction
1:08 - Robots in science fiction
6:49 - Cozmo
32:04 - AI companions
38:59 - Anki
1:04:33 - Waymo Via
1:36:10 - Sensor suites for long haul trucking
1:46:06 - Machine learning
2:04:03 - Waymo vs Tesla
2:14:38 - Safety and risk management
2:23:42 - Societal effects of automation
2:34:47 - Amazon Astro
2:39:12 - Challenges of the robotics industry
2:43:39 - Humanoid robotics
2:50:42 - Advice for getting a PhD in robotics
2:58:13 - Advice for robotics startups
3:09:19 - Advice for students

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