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: https://twitter.com/bsofman
Boris’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bsofman
Waymo’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/waymo
Waymo’s YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/waymo
Waymo’s Website: https://waymo.com/
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OUTLINE:
Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.
(00:00) – Introduction
(07:32) – Robots in science fiction
(13:13) – Cozmo
(38:28) – AI companions
(45:23) – Anki
(1:10:56) – Waymo Via
(1:42:34) – Sensor suites for long haul trucking
(1:52:30) – Machine learning
(2:10:26) – Waymo vs Tesla
(2:21:02) – Safety and risk management
(2:30:06) – Societal effects of automation
(2:41:11) – Amazon Astro
(2:45:35) – Challenges of the robotics industry
(2:50:03) – Humanoid robotics
(2:57:06) – Advice for getting a PhD in robotics
(3:04:37) – Advice for robotics startups
(3:15:43) – Advice for students
with Boris Sofman (@bsofman), Dave Touretzky (@DaveTouretzky), and Hanne Tidnam (@omnivorousread)
We're just now beginning to truly see the the first 'real' robots in the home, from Roombas to toys to companions to... well, much more. How are humans beginning to forge relationships with these robotic devices (/entities!) -- and how will those relationships develop? What do we learn as we begin to forge relationships and interact with robotic toys like Cosmo and Vector -- about robots, and about ourselves? And what do these learnings teach us about the possibility of adding a "personality wrapper" to new technologies?
In this episode of the a16z Podcast, CEO and cofounder of Anki Boris Sofman, and Research Professor of Computer Science at CMU Dave Touretzky, discuss with a16z's Hanne Tidnam where we are in the human-robotic future, the history of robotics that has brought us here, and the next big breakthroughs -- in hardware, software, perception, navigation, and manipulation -- that will bring in the next waves of innovation for robots.
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Anki, known for creating “robots that move you,” just finished a successful Kickstarter campaign to fund their new home robot, Vector. Anki CEO Boris Sofman sat down with Nilay for this week’s interview episode of The Vergecast to talk about the new companion robot, why gendering the robots is important, and how to avoid the uncanny valley.
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Anki CEO Boris Sofman talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about the future of robotics and why his company is starting with robots that entertain people: The artificially intelligent toy cars Anki Drive, released in 2013, and the emotive pet-like Cozmo, which came out in 2016. Sofman says designing for cuteness makes it easier for humans to accept when the robot makes an error, and is a low-risk way to make all robots better at skills like computer vision. He also talks about the current state of self-driving cars and why the biggest danger robots currently pose to humanity is being misused by human operators.
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