Supply Chain Woes, Self-Driving Vehicles, and Rebuilding Relationships — with Bryan Salesky

Tech Progress

Bryan Salesky, founder of Argo AI, emphasizes the gradual progression of autonomous vehicle technology. He notes that while significant capital is invested, the focus should remain on building efficient and safe transportation solutions. Salesky highlights that many early projections were overly optimistic, and the industry now recognizes the complexity of achieving reliable autonomous systems.

I think that there were people making projections that maybe weren't as informed about the state of things, or how difficult it would be to get the miles, get the testing run through, all of the things required to make sure you have a solid software release and a solid hardware base to work from.

--- Bryan Salesky

He also points out that the rollout of these technologies will be a city-by-city process, requiring time and patience 1 2.

   

Market Outlook

The market for autonomous vehicles presents both opportunities and challenges. Salesky envisions a future where autonomous technology transforms various sectors, including trucking and urban transit. He explains that while driver assistance features are currently prevalent, fully autonomous vehicles will be the true game-changer, especially in addressing issues like driver shortages and supply chain inefficiencies.

It still has extremely powerful technology behind it, but it's a driver assist feature. And I think what happens is you kind of move up the staircase from driver assistance level features that maybe give you better efficiency, better safety, less driver fatigue, and then you get to fully autonomous vehicles.

--- Bryan Salesky

Salesky also discusses the technological advancements that have made autonomous vehicles feasible, such as the development of deep neural networks and modern GPUs, which were once considered computationally infeasible 3 4.