cover of episode Ep 107: Off-Road Autonomy & Saving Soldiers' Lives with Overland AI CEO Byron Boots

Ep 107: Off-Road Autonomy & Saving Soldiers' Lives with Overland AI CEO Byron Boots

2025/1/30
logo of podcast Joe Lonsdale: American Optimist

Joe Lonsdale: American Optimist

AI Deep Dive AI Chapters Transcript
People
B
Byron Boots
J
Joe Lonsdale
M
Mark Mandel
M
Mark Mirchandani
访
访谈者
Topics
Byron Boots: 我开发了先进的越野自动驾驶技术,并将其应用于军事领域,以保护士兵生命并提高作战能力。我的学术背景(哲学和计算机科学)帮助我将对人类思维的深刻理解应用于工程实践中。我们通过持续的现场测试和软硬件的快速迭代,取得了领先地位。我们正在开发能够协调控制多个自主机器人的系统,并正在将硬件生产内部化。我相信技术进步的快速速度将继续改变我们的生活。 Overland AI 的成功将有助于保护美国士兵的生命,并在战场上取得优势。我们正在努力将最危险的军事工作自动化,以保护士兵的生命。 Joe Lonsdale: 越野自动驾驶技术对于国家安全至关重要,它能够使单一操作员控制多个地面车辆,并在电子战环境中保持作战能力。未来,一个小型作战小组可能能够控制大量的自主地面机器人,从而显著提高作战效率。国防部正在从过度工程转向更经济高效的模式,可牺牲性车辆在现代战争中越来越重要。 Mark Mandel: 越野自动驾驶与城市道路自动驾驶是两个不同的挑战。 Mark Mirchandani: 城市道路自动驾驶的挑战在于处理环境中的其他参与者,而越野自动驾驶的挑战在于穿越地形。

Deep Dive

Shownotes Transcript

Self-driving is an immensely complex challenge; Tesla, Waymo, and others are locked in a years-long race. But equally challenging, and less known, is the race to develop off-road self-driving. How do you build systems that can navigate unmapped terrain, dodge boulders, and see behind trees — all at high speeds? And how can our military deploy this technology to enhance lethality and save soldiers' lives?

We discuss these exciting breakthroughs with Byron Boots, Co-Founder & CEO of Overland AI) — one of the most exciting new U.S. defense companies. Byron holds a PhD in machine learning from Carnegie Mellon and also teaches machine learning and robotics at the University of Washington.

We begin with Byron's background as a philosopher-builder, and how he created the top ground autonomy research group in partnership with the Department of Defense. We dive into the engineering challenges of off-road self-driving, and Byron reveals what sets Overland apart from the competition. Next, we cover the strategic significance of Overland's work and how it will abstract humans from dangerous ground operations, like breaching, and transform warfare. If Overland is successful, thousands of autonomous vehicles, each with an elite operator controlling his own smart fleet, could replace the traditional ground campaigns of tanks, infantrymen, and heavy casualties — and that's something we can all be optimistic about.

00:00 Episode Intro

01:30 Byron’s Philosopher Builder Background

05:32 DARPA challenge & Overland origin story

08:15 On-road vs off-road self-driving

13:08 How ground autonomy changes warfare

18:59 Engineering challenges in off-road autonomy

23:30 AI-enabled swarming & the future of warfare

29:03 Building with the Pentagon

32:37 Optimism for the future This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit blog.joelonsdale.com)