Self-driving cars are here. 2 industry pros share with BI how to get the public to trust them. (www.businessinsider.com)

Business Insider is hosting a live discussion with Rivian’s Head of Autonomy James Philbin and Charlie Tyson from Michigan’s Office of Future Mobility & Electrification about one of the industry’s biggest challenges: getting the public to trust self-driving cars. As autonomy moves out of labs and into EVs, robotaxis and pilot fleets, automakers and city leaders are wrestling with how to encourage adoption while keeping safety front and center. The conversation will cover practical steps for measuring readiness for pilot programs, preparing infrastructure and communities, and teaching autonomous systems to handle everyday hazards—especially bad weather and unpredictable human behavior. For the AI/ML community, the session highlights concrete technical priorities: robust sensor fusion and perception under adverse conditions, simulation-to-reality validation, clear safety and readiness metrics for operational design domains, and scalable fleet-data pipelines for continuous learning and edge-case discovery. It also underscores the need for collaboration with city planners on mapping, V2X, and human-factor testing so models are trained on representative data. In short, successful deployment requires not just better models, but rigorous validation frameworks, real-world pilot telemetry, and policy partnerships to translate AI capabilities into public trust. (Event sponsored by Mobileye.)