AI model architectures are only enablers without the surrounding data flywheel
Dmitri Dolgov · No Priors Ep. 87 | With Co-CEO of Waymo Dmitri Dolgov · Oct 24, 2024 · at 10:08
Waymo Co-CEO Dmitri Dolgov explains to Elad Gil what technical components and AI infrastructure enabled Waymo's self-driving breakthrough.
0:00 / 0:23exact quote · 23.8s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“The architecture is an enabler, but really to make it work at the level that we care about, you need like everything around it. The data engine, the whole, you know, flywheel of, you know, training the system, evaluating it. And you kind of have to think about the problem of evaluating the driver in tandem of building it, right? And you know, you need the simulator, you need the data. So all of those coming together, I think is what leads to you know, the breakthrough and discontinuity that you're seeing with where we are today.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Dmitri Dolgov
Waymo's autonomous driving technology is fundamentally centered on AI, not hardware
“It's all about AI. Full stop. Like we talked about, you know, a few big breakthroughs that allowed us to get to where we are today. You know, content, transformers, big Ness now, you know, most recently kind of combining the Waymo AI with the congenital knowle…”
Dolgov: Camera-only systems are not safe enough for full autonomy
“Same, same for us. We can, you know, take something away and we can answer that question. Like, is the performance, can you still drive? Of course. Is the performance good enough? For full autonomy, and is it good enough for our bar of readiness and safety? An…”
Dolgov: AV complexity lies in long-tail reliability, not prototypes or ADAS
“The hard problem, and it's kind of like that, the early part of the curve has been getting like, you know, even steeper and steeper, but that's not where the complexity is. The complexity is in the long tail of the many, many, many nines. And you don't see tha…”
Dolgov: Off-the-shelf AI models cannot achieve human-beating driverless safety records
“The power of transformers, the power of realism is mind-blowing, right? So with just a little bit of effort, you get something on the road, and it works. You can, you know, drive, I don't know, 1000 of miles, and we just, it will blow your mind. But then is th…”