Something in the air about Self-Driving Cars: Sebastian Thrun on Udacity Talks

Yesterday’s episode of Udacity Talks was a special one, as we got to move Sebastian Thrun to the guest’s chair to talk Self-Driving Cars. This came on the heels of launching our new Self-Driving Car Nanodegree program on Tuesday — a launch we kicked off with Sebastian’s appearance at TechCrunch Disrupt.

Maybe it was because of all the launch excitement, or maybe it’s just because — as Sebastian put it during yesterday’s episode — “there is just something in the air about Self-Driving Cars.” Whatever the reason, we were literally flooded with student questions for this episode, and Sebastian provided some fascinating answers throughout.

You’ll have to watch the whole episode to experience the full measure of what Sebastian discussed with our special guest host Shernaz Daver (Chief Marketing Officer, Udacity), but below are some examples of the great questions we received, as well as some of Sebastian’s quotes that caught particular traction on social. Enjoy!

“What originally gave YOU the idea of creating a self-driving car?”

“How do you deal with the ethical issues of self-driving cars, where you displace so many people out of jobs, because now the cars will drive themselves? What happens to those people?

“Is it better to build a self-driving car from zero, or to integrate self-driving technology into current cars on the road?”

“Do you think there could be self-driving cars in India, where the roads are not linear, and the traffic flow is not linear?”

“After completing the Self-Driving Car Engineer Nanodegree program, do you think someone could be able to make an autonomous car just with easily attainable, off-the-shelf parts?”

“What is the Self-Driving Car Nanodegree program designed for, and will I get a job after it?”

To hear how Sebastian fielded these and many more questions, please watch the full episode here:

And here is just a sampling of some of the quotes that emerged from the episode:

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This post was written by Christopher Watkins, Senior Writer, Udacity