Conversations in Machine Learning: Autonomous Vehicles for a Better World

This is another installment of Mighty AI's "Conversations in Machine Learning" blog series. Each week, our content human, Cassie, shares a summary of a recent conversation we had with a machine learning team and potential customer--what they're building, how they're handling training data today, etc. Read more about the series here. I've been reading a lot (and writing a little) about autonomous vehicles over the past year, and while it's all quite fascinating and sometimes makes me look up from my computer and say aloud to my coworkers "people are building cars that will DRIVE THEMSELVES, you guys" with a look on my face that indicates I've been really thinking about it and it's really blowing my mind, the idea has yet to give me the warm-fuzzies. Since meeting them at June's Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), we've been chatting with a Corporate Research Engineer and Automated Driving Research Engineer from a behemoth of a company that's working on self-driving car technology. And as I researched the organization for this post, it became clear their main motivations in advancing the field are uniquely noble: increasing safety, protecting the planet, and improving quality of life.