No Parking Podcast: Recent Episodes
No Parking Podcast
No Parking is a podcast about self-driving vehicles, artificial intelligence, and how technology will actually change our daily lives. Tune in to two friends — outlaw rally racer Alex Roy and roboticist Bryan Salesky — for honest conversations about how it all works and what’s coming next.
Check us out @ https://noparkingpodcast.com or on Twitter @noparkingpod & @alexroy144
Hockey and self-driving technology intersect when Pittsburgh Penguins data analysts Kat Wu and Nick Citrone sit down with Argo AI's VP of Autonomy, Peter Carr, along with host Alex Roy. Learn how technology and predictive analytics help NHL teams gain a competitive advantage.
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Alex Roy sits down with returning guest, Sam Abuelsamid, former auto engineer and current Principal Analyst of E-Mobility Research with Guidehouse Insights. The duo discusses the hottest topics in mobility, AI, and the autonomous vehicle space in this year-in-review episode.
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“Gridlock Sam” joins Alex Roy in this episode of No Parking to talk about cities (mostly the Big Apple), what a degree in Traffic Engineering (yes, that’s a thing) can teach you, and how the father of the term “gridlock” changed transportation.
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Attorney and policy advisor, Henry Greenidge, joins Alex Roy to discuss lessons learned from the history of automatic elevators and his belief in the future of autonomous vehicles to help address social inequalities.
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The Overtown Youth Center in Miami is a comprehensive development organization providing services to at-risk youth from kindergarten through age 25 and their families. CEO Tina Brown sits down with Alex Roy to discuss mobility equity — and lack thereof — and what it means for the communities she serves.
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What is cultural anthropology? How does word association affect public perception of AVs and AI in general? Alex Roy sits down with the Queen of Culture and Founding Partner of Cultique, Sarah Unger.
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Alex Roy sits down with Harry Campbell, AKA The Rideshare Guy, to talk about all things hiring, training, recruiting, and upskilling in the gig economy.
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Do you have Google Alerts set to your name? Alex Roy does, and when he received a notification mentioning his name in an article by Patrick McGinty about AVs in The Baffler, he did what anyone would do— he cold-called the author, who happens to teach at Slippery Rock University. McGinty sits down with Alex to talk about how AVs are portrayed in the media and the insights his students can offer on the topic.
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Author Andreas Bernard joins Alex Roy to discuss his seminal work Lifted: A Cultural History of the Elevator and how the history of the elevator can serve as an analogy for the modern-day autonomous vehicle industry.
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After losing his eyesight 20 years ago, artist and activist David New of Miami, Florida had to adjust to a whole new way of life. New joins Alex Roy in a conversation about getting from point A to point B with a disability.
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With more than three decades of government service under his belt, Jose Orench knows a thing or two about information technology. As a former Special Assistant to the Head of the FBI's Engineering Research Facility, Orench spent his career learning about and utilizing technology for safety and defense. In this episode, he applies his extensive knowledge to the world of AV’s.
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People love robots. If you’re here, you definitely love robots. This episode features Founder and Chairman of iRobot, Colin Angle. He joins Alex Roy & Bryan Salesky in a conversation about America’s favorite robot, the Roomba.
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Sometimes, things that look really simple are really complex, but you can’t see it until you break them down into their individual parts. Christian James Hand has devoted his life to helping people understand and appreciate music by peeling back the layers of America's favorite songs. The famed radio host and music historian sits down with Alex and Bryan to talk about his method, the intricacies of his favorite music, and how his work in the industry relates to autonomous vehicles.
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Cities have been trying to “solve” traffic since ancient Rome, but now more than ever, it seems like real innovation gets drowned by noise. Alissa Walker of Curbed joins Alex to talk about a handful of these “solution-oriented” municipal projects, which ones might work, what probably won’t, and how autonomous vehicles might fit into the mix.
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Alex Davies, journalist at Business Insider and “biographer” of the autonomous vehicle industry, joins Alex and Bryan to talk about his recent book Driven: The Race to Create the Autonomous Car. Davies chronicles the story of the self-driving industry, from the DARPA Grand Challenges to the present, and Bryan offers an insider take on the early days and the toughest questions from back then that the industry still wrestles with today.
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Everything we do depends on the weather, and nobody knows our changing skies better than meteorologist Jim Cantore. As one of the most well known faces in forecasting, he’s spent decades on the front lines of some of the world’s most severe weather events and knows exactly how far predictive data has come — from prayers and educated guesswork to artificial intelligence and mind-blowing CGI. Hear his take on that evolution, trust-building, and what self-driving can learn from weather prediction technology.
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As the founder of FIRST Robotics, Deka Research, and ARMI (to name a few), Segway-creator Dean Kamen holds over 1,000 patents and an invaluable perspective on how inventions scale. This week, the prolific inventor opens up about his path to creation, what schools get wrong about STEM education, and why he thinks competition is key to getting kids to study science.
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Jason Torchinsky's Robot, Take the Wheel tops our list of must-read books for anyone interested in autonomous vehicles. Torchinsky, automotive expert and senior editor of Jalopnik.com, joins Alex to talk about this history of self-driving and how AV developers plan for human habits inside and outside the cars.
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Why would one of America's best-known nonprofits invest $5.25 million in autonomous vehicle technology? This week, Sam Gill of the James L. Knight Foundation explains why he says it’s vital to put people and communities at the center of local self-driving programs. Plus, hear how Miami has weathered a nearly year-long quarantine.
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A lot of people know Hagerty for its collectible car and boat insurance, but it’s fast becoming one of the largest communities for car enthusiasts in the world. CEO McKeel Hagerty joins Alex & Bryan to talk about his favorite rides, why driving will never die, and what events are still out there for car lovers during quarantine. Plus, hear what he really thinks about autonomous vehicles.
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In our final episode of the year, we bring back automotive analyst Sam Abuelsamid for a year-end, mythbusting wrap-up with Bryan and Alex. Was 2020 ever going to be the "year of self-driving?" What should we make of industry consolidation? Are we past ride-hail, or could it be reborn? No Parking trades takes with Sam on this year's biggest news and hottest trends, plus makes a few predictions for what to expect in 2021.
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Sure, Santa can bend the laws of physics, but how could he use real-world science and technology to improve his process and get presents out to 750 million households in a single night? From autonomous delivery fleets and data privacy to relativity clouds and invisibility cloaks, hear how 21st Century tech might just hold the key to the next iteration of Santa, Inc.
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How important is the human experience in the development of autonomous technology? Ten-time Indianapolis 500 competitor J.R. Hildebrand joins Bryan and Alex to talk about his work with Stanford, what the self-driving industry can learn from professional racing, and how tech on the track can influence consumer-grade vehicles.
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Whether you're grabbing groceries, going to the doctor, taking your kids to school, or interviewing for a new job, you have to get there. But for people who don’t own a vehicle, those journeys aren’t always so straightforward. This week, hear from Veronica Vanterpool, a seasoned mobility advocate and Chief Innovation Officer for the Delaware Department of Transportation, about why she’s invested in autonomous technology and what role self-driving can play in the journey toward greater transit equity for all.
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Mike Finnegan is a self-taught engine builder, skilled fabricator, lifelong tinkerer, semi-pro drag boat racer and the host of the shows "Roadkill" and "Finnegan's Garage." This renaissance man learns by doing. And in his world, that sometimes involves busted vehicles or broken bones. From his home base in Atlanta, Mike sits down with Bryan and Alex to talk about his career as a journalist, learning from failure, the decline of apprenticeships, and how self-driving technology could make drag racing safer.
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When basketball went offline in March, NBA executives had a few months to pivot. What they created — a “bubble” environment that kept athletes safe while inviting their millions of fans to participate virtually — harnessed technology to reimagine professional sports. Danny Meiseles, the NBA’s President and Executive Producer of Content, explains how his crews successfully simulated a live crowd, kept players hyped, and completed the 2020 season, plus what to expect when gameplay restarts in December.
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What can autonomous vehicles learn from the experience of everyone else on the road? Cyclist and veteran mobility expert Emily Castor Warren shares what she learned from her time at Lyft and Lime about the breakdown of trust between cyclists and drivers, plus how better policy and infrastructure might glue it all together.
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How do self-driving cars recognize cyclists, pedestrians, and other vulnerable road users? How do they all interact on real-life city roads? Megan checks in with Argo AI’s Peter Carr to learn how the autonomous technology actually works.
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What do punch cards and autonomous vehicles have in common? CBS newsman and humorist Mo Rocca takes Bryan and Megan on a tour of yesteryear with an inspiring tale of the founding mother of computer programming, plus what he looks for when profiling modern-day changemakers on "The Henry Ford's Innovation Nation."
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With the U.S. election just days away, Alex Roy checks in with a Chief Business Officer to talk about how community partnerships and employee buy-in prompted Spin to lend its ride-sharing scooters to help voters get to the polls.
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One week before Election Day, Alex Roy and Megan Harris ask how technology affects our voting system and whether artificial intelligence could help. Hear Vote America founder Debra Cleaver discuss the state of our democracy, what she’d do to create more opportunities to register, and whether it’s better to bring the people to the polls or the polls to the people. Find more at https://noparkingpodcast.com
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Disaster preparedness expert Dr. Nicolette Louissaint draws from her experience managing healthcare supply chain readiness before, during and after natural disasters and disease pandemics. Bryan, Alex, and producer Megan explore the lessons Dr. Louissaint learned from the Ebola outbreak and what we’re still getting wrong about masks and toilet paper supply, plus how self-driving vehicles and automation may be able to help in the future.
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Former NPR journalist turned No Parking Podcast producer, Megan Harris, joins co-host Alex Roy to talk about how COVID-19 has accelerated innovation in the self-driving space and other autonomous vehicle news you may have missed since March, plus the trends they're watching headed into the fall.
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It's been a while since we dropped an episode and suffice it to say, a lot has changed in the world. Hear what resident skeptic Alex Roy has been up to since March, why he and Bryan started the podcast in the first place, and what they've learned so far. And if you're new to No Parking, this is the perfect episode to get the low-down on Alex's favorites from Season 1.
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He lost his dad at 15, launched his first company on a shoestring, and sold it when he was 18. Now Jake Millar is 24 and has interviewed over 500 of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs, from Richard Branson (Virgin) to Eric Yuan (Zoom) to Cal Henderson (Slack) about how to launch, scale, manage, and sell companies. This week Alex & Bryan meet the Founder and CEO of Unfiltered.TV, who is redefining how we learn about business and throwing the conventional idea of an MBA out the window. Check it out as No Parking turns the tables on the young entrepreneur some call a one-man Davos.
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When NY Times columnist Kara Swisher announced she was giving up her car for good, some said the idea was crazy. Famed host of Recode Decode and Pivot joins Alex and Bryan to discuss how that’s played out, if and when autonomous vehicles will take over, and whether private ownership will really go away. Stay tuned to learn about Kara’s political future, her No. 1 secret to surviving as a mom without a car, the technology bet that Uber’s hedging its future on, and what it takes to change American hearts and minds forever.
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How and why do people take on seemingly impossible goals? From war to sports to business, New York Times bestselling author Neal Bascomb is the master of telling the stories of those who have triumphed despite all opposition. He’s spent his career studying some of history’s bravest pioneers, and he knows exactly how and why they’ve accomplished the impossible. Bascomb joins Alex Roy to discuss their favorite books, patriotism, some classic sci-fiction movies, the “A-Team,” “Red Dawn,” “Quetzalcoatl,” Bascomb’s upcoming book FASTER, the true story of a Jewish race car driver taking on Hitler’s favorite team on the eve of World World 2, and the one thing he says all fearless leaders have in common.
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What is safety? Who decides, and how do they do it? Turns out, safety isn’t just wearing a seatbelt or looking both ways before you cross a road. It’s a heavily regulated, thought out system of protecting everyday citizens from unnecessary danger. From U.S. Navy subs to Carnegie Mellon, the National Robotics Engineering Center and now Edge Case Research, Dr. Phillip Koopman has long been the tip of the intellectual spear defining the bar for safety—and raising it. But what happens when Alex Roy asks the question no one in AI or robotics wants to answer?
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How hard is it to hack a self-driving car? What happens when someone tries to phish the CEO of Argo AI? How realistic is that crazy room in the first “Mission Impossible” movie? How can we protect ourselves from a cyber attack? As it turns out, there are more misconceptions about security in self-driving cars than you can count on both hands, and we’re here to filter out the silliness and dish you exactly what you need to know about hacking (and protecting!) an autonomous vehicle. From secret military projects to Carnegie Mellon University to civilian autonomous vehicles, Argo AI Chief Information Officer Summer Craze Fowler has seen it all. In one of our earliest recorded episodes, Summer schools Bryan and Alex on the truth about the biggest secret in information security.
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Hype-cutting gets a new ally as SFMTA Director Jeffrey Tumlin shares the biggest secret in mobility, then takes a white hot chainsaw through myths around smart cities, efficiency, congestion, housing costs, the relationship between socialism and potholes, supply and demand, and the value of time. Hear Tumlin’s thoughts on how San Francisco can be fixed just before he was appointed the city’s transportation director. Plus does the interior of a self-driving vehicle actually matter, and how can public/private partnerships go wrong…or right?
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Josh McManus, Chief Strategy Officer at Civic Entertainment Group, believes '“city” is a verb instead of a noun. Hear he and Alex Roy wax poetic on trust, safety, intellectualism, and the legend of Bucky Fuller, plus the folly of zero-sum thinking and why it’s critical you never fall for your own BS. From the Knight Foundation to leading downtown Detroit’s revitalization with Dan Gilbert and bringing Ford Motor Company into the future, McManus has been at the helm of making cities more enjoyable for the folks who actually live and work in them for his entire career.
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Alex & Bryan discuss woodworking, trust, and quality furniture, then visit an entrepreneur who really tells it like it is: James Beard-award winning chef Michael Schwartz. They dine at his flagship restaurant, Michael’s Genuine Food & Drink, and talk to Schwartz about his restaurant’s place in the history of Miami’s Design District. But Michael does more than just manage restaurants, he owns a thriving catering business and runs programs to increase access to healthy food for school children. Bryan hatches a plan for how AVs can help streamline all this work.
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Some look at humanoid robots and only see Skynet, but Agility Robotics is building increasingly person-like machines with one goal: to serve mankind. From the one-legged Thumper to a two-armed, two-legged delivery robot named Digit, Founder Damion Shelton has long been at the cutting edge of robots meant to do our bidding. Damion, Bryan and Alex geek out about how to make these robots actually work, where we may see them used in the future, and how technology research funding is really used. Bryan and Damion agree there’s only one way to build smart, successful AI—but what does their consensus mean for the future of artificial intelligence and self-driving cars?
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The soundtrack of our lives is the music we listen to while driving. How will autonomous vehicles change that experience? Will we really be able to attend a concert virtually from the comfort of our own vehicle? In 5 years, 10 years 20 years? Barak Moffitt, Executive Vice President of Content Strategy & Operations for Universal Music Group, joins us to talk about Dolby Atmos, podcasting, and how to put augmented reality and virtual reality in motion. Plus Alex pitches his next business idea for creating the ultimate narrative music experience to Universal, and we learn just how far the music industry plans to take content creation in order to captivate the ever-shrinking attention spans of modern-day listeners.
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Who better to debate autonomous vehicles with Alex Roy than Dr. Mark Rosekind, former head of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) and Fatigue Countermeasures at NASA. Now he’s the Chief Safety Innovation Officer at Zoox, and still one of the most opinionated and colorful characters in American transportation. Hear how he revolutionized sleep for astronauts and investigated devastating accidents, plus why he’s now a big proponent for autonomous vehicles in cities.
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The best way to make American great is to equip our most talented kids with the tools to build the next generation of technology. The problem? Many public schools lack computer science classes. Steel City Codes founders Akshana Dassanaike-Perera, Joshua Zhou & Claire Shao have a solution: a coding-focused educational nonprofit led by kids, for kids. These teenage trailblazers join Alex and Bryan to talk about teaching Python to 9 year olds, the challenges and opportunities they face in the STEM education system, the secret to building an educational program kids actually enjoy, and their plans for future tech industry domination.
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He led WIRED Magazine from 2001 to 2012, making the internet cool and mainstream and even coined the term “The Long Tail.” Now Chris Anderson is the Founder & CEO of 3D Robotics, DIY Drones and DIY Robocars, an autonomous racing series anyone can afford to enter. So how do you build an autonomous vehicle in your garage? And how did amateur drone enthusiasts revolutionize the industry forever? Anderson details the genius behind DIY robots and explains how they can help solve problems encountered by those on the forefront of autonomous vehicle development.
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He used to manage an endurance racing team. Now he’s in charge of a fleet of autonomous vehicles. Argo AI’s Andre Ramdhanny explains what they have in common. Hear the former team-builder share the most exciting story from his racing career, what really happens when you take your car to a dealership for servicing, and why you don’t need a PhD to work in the tech sector. Stay tuned as he also solves Alex’s BMW battery problems and breaks down the best racing books to add to your reading list.
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From Zipcar to running Chicago and Washington D.C.’s Departments of Transportation, to VC fund Fontinalis and CityFi, Gabe Klein is one of the zero-BS good guys working to keep cities moving and people happy. Klein joins Alex & Bryan to talk about the broken-window theory, transit deserts, data privacy and more. And stay tuned for a fact-check on the demise of streetcars, what highways got wrong, and a possible resurgence of pedestrian zones.
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What can sci-fi teach us about the future of autonomous vehicles, transportation, and human nature? “Black Panther” Production Designer and Ohio native Hannah Beachler explains her personal struggles with inaccessible transportation systems, how and why she designed the fictional, car-free capital of Wakanda, and what it would take for her to trust a self-driving car. Plus, she shares her love of Porsche and a secret that may shine a light on the friction between personal freedom and the future of urban mobility.
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What can autonomous vehicles learn from the automation of medicine? Brachium CEO & Founder Yaz Shehab joins Bryan and Alex to explain how he plans to replace your trip to the dentist with a robot that can clean your teeth—and why that robot probably won’t also perform your root canals anytime soon. What does the FDA think of robot dentists, and what does that mean for self-driving cars? On this episode, we debate the similarities between robotic health care, plus how machines can earn (or break) our trust.
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Creative Director Alex McDowell doesn’t see the future, he designs it, and everyone from venture capitalists to Ford and NASA look to his work on films like “Minority Report,” “Fight Club,” “Watchmen,” and “Lawnmower Man” for inspiration. But unlike many futurists, McDowell’s futures aren’t robot-centric at all. Hear about his background with the World Building Institute and Experimental.Design, plus what the Sex Pistols and DARPA have in common.
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From Zipcar to Ford, the Detroit Mobility Lab, and the Michigan Mobility Institute, Jessica Robinson is one of the most popular and most respected experts in urban transportation. Robinson is a strong advocate for earning a Masters in Mobility, but before you run off to grad school, tune into this episode to learn the basics of solving mobility challenges, whether lessons from one city are portable to another, and what it means to collect too much data.
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From the Marines to Carnegie Mellon, the DARPA Challenges, Three Mile Island, Bhopal, the Moon, Mars and things he still can’t talk about, the legendary Red Whittaker has taught, led, and inspired teams to do the impossible. Whether it’s dealing with the aftermath of a nuclear meltdown, cleaning up chemical leaks or repairing mine collapses, odds are Whittaker’s built a robot that can handle it. Hear from the father of Field Robotics, who has been a teacher and mentor to almost every CEO in the self-driving industry today, share his thoughts on leadership, invention, the future and his next frontier: outer space.
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Successful director and screenwriter Peter Berg joins Alex & Bryan to discuss what drives the characters in his films, fatherhood, risk, freedom, self-driving cars, boxing, and the greatest WWII movie that has never been made. Fresh off his first experience in an autonomous vehicle, the director of “Friday Night Lights,” “Patriots Day,” “Very Bad Things” and “Deepwater Horizon” breaks down his approach to storytelling, how to raise hundreds of millions for a crazy idea, and gives us the low-down on the Hollywood Blacklist.
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Outlaw racer Alex Roy & roboticist Bryan Salesky sit down with Sam Abuelsamid — Navigant Research Analyst, Forbes writer and one of the world’s leading experts on the automotive & technology sectors — to discuss and debunk the Top Myths about Autonomous Vehicles. Will your teenager need a driver's license in the future? Is Tesla winning the self-driving race? Will car accidents exist 2 decades from now? On this episode of No Parking, we cut through the industry hype and serve you the reality of autonomous vehicles straight up.
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Alex Roy and Bryan Salesky discuss why they are launching a podcast in a sea of podcasts.
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Alex Roy & Bryan Salesky are joined by award-winning screenwriter and WIRED contributing editor Josh Davis to talk about how he survived Russian Roulette with John McAfee, the truth about Elon Musk’s timeline for self-driving, and his new autonomous vehicles thriller, a modern-day 12 Angry Men in which an AV company executive is charged with manslaughter. Davis has been writing about the self-driving industry since before the DARPA Challenges, nearly 20 years ago. Hear what he thinks about how and when we’ll trust autonomous vehicles and the craziest discovery he’s made that hasn’t been made into a film… yet.
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