This is a clip from a conversation with Colin Angle on the Artificial Intelligence podcast from Sep 2019. You can watch the full conversation here: http://bit.ly/30nG7v3 or listen to it here: https://lexfridman.com/colin-angle/ and subscribe on your podcast app. You can watch other clips on the clips playlist: http://bit.ly/2JYkbfZ or full episodes on the full episode playlist: http://bit.ly/2EcbaKf Please note, I select clips with insights from these much longer conversation with the hope of helping make ideas from the podcast more accessible and discoverable. Ultimately, this podcast is a small side hobby for me with the goal of sharing and discussing ideas. For now, I post a clip every day when there is not a full length video. I did a poll and 92% of people either liked or loved the posting of daily clips, 2% were indifferent, and 6% hated it, some suggesting that I post them on a separate YouTube channel. I hear the 6% and partially agree, so am torn about the whole thing. I tried creating a separate clips channel but the YouTube algorithm makes it very difficult for that channel to grow unless the main channel is already very popular. So for a little while, I'll keep posting clips on the main channel. I ask for your patience and to see these clips as supporting the dissemination of knowledge contained in nuanced discussion. If you enjoy it, consider subscribing, sharing, and commenting.

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Colin Angle is the CEO and co-founder of iRobot, a robotics company that for 29 years has been creating robots that operate successfully in the real world, not as a demo or on a scale of dozens, but on a scale of thousands and millions. As of this year, iRobot has sold more than 25 million robots to consumers, including the Roomba vacuum cleaning robot, the Braava floor mopping robot, and soon the Terra lawn mowing robot. 25 million robots successfully operating autonomously in people's homes to me is an incredible accomplishment of science, engineering, logistics, and all kinds of entrepreneurial innovation.

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Another industry in which I would say the only other industry in which there is automation actually touching people's lives today is autonomous vehicles.

What the vision you just described of using computer vision and using cheap camera sensors, there's a debate on that, of LIDAR versus computer vision, and sort of, the Elon Musk famously said that LIDAR is a crutch that really in camera in the long term camera only is the right solution which echoes some of the ideas you're expressing of course the domain in terms of its safety criticality is different, but what do you think about that approach in the autonomous vehicle space?

And in general, do you see a connection between the incredible real-world challenges you have to solve in the home with Roomba.

Corner cases, literally, and autonomous vehicles.

So there's absolutely a tremendous overlap between both the problems, you know, a robot vacuum and an autonomous vehicle are trying to solve, and the tools and the types of sensors that are being applied in the pursuit of the solutions.

In my world, my environment is actually much harder than the environment in automobile travels.

We don't have roads, we have t-shirts, we have steps, We have a near infinite number of patterns and colors and surface textures on the floor.

On the other hand, safety is way easier on the inside.

My robots, they're not very heavy, they're not very fast.

If they bump into your foot, you think it's funny.

And you know, And autonomous vehicles kind of have the inverse problem.

And so that for me saying vision is the future, I can say that without reservation.

For autonomous vehicles, I think I believe what Elon's saying about the future is ultimately going to be vision.

Maybe if we put a cheap lighter on there as a backup sensor, It might not be the worst idea in the world.

You have to be much more careful thinking through how far away that feature is, right?

But I think that the primary environmental understanding sensor is going to be a visual system.


Speaker 0: Another industry in which I would say the only other industry in which there is automation actually touching people's lives today is autonomous vehicles. What the vision you just described of using computer vision and using cheap camera sensors, there's a debate on that, of LIDAR versus computer vision, and sort of, the Elon Musk famously said that LIDAR is a crutch that really in camera in the long term camera only is the right solution which echoes some of the ideas you're expressing of course the domain in terms of its safety criticality is different, but what do you think about that approach in the autonomous vehicle space? And in general, do you see a connection between the incredible real-world challenges you have to solve in the home with Roomba. I saw a demonstration of some of them. Corner cases, literally, and autonomous vehicles.

Speaker 1: So there's absolutely a tremendous overlap between both the problems, you know, a robot vacuum and an autonomous vehicle are trying to solve, and the tools and the types of sensors that are being applied in the pursuit of the solutions. In my world, my environment is actually much harder than the environment in automobile travels. We don't have roads, we have t-shirts, we have steps, We have a near infinite number of patterns and colors and surface textures on the floor.

Speaker 0: Especially from a visual perspective.

Speaker 1: Yeah, visually

Speaker 0: it's really tough. Is infinitely variable.

Speaker 1: On the other hand, safety is way easier on the inside. My robots, they're not very heavy, they're not very fast. If they bump into your foot, you think it's funny. And you know, And autonomous vehicles kind of have the inverse problem. And so that for me saying vision is the future, I can say that without reservation.

For autonomous vehicles, I think I believe what Elon's saying about the future is ultimately going to be vision. Maybe if we put a cheap lighter on there as a backup sensor, It might not be the worst idea in the world.

Speaker 0: So the stakes are much higher.

Speaker 1: The stakes are much higher.

Speaker 0: You have to be much more careful thinking through how far away that feature is, right?

Speaker 1: Right. But I think that the primary environmental understanding sensor is going to be a visual system. You

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Roomba vs Autonomous Vehicles: Vision not Lidar is the Future for Robotics - iRobot CEO | AI Clip