Self-driving cars: the greatest automotive industry disruption since Henry Ford’s Model-T assembly line… just around the corner. Right? That’s the hype—but is it reality? Are we mere blocks away from our neighborhood streets and freeways being filled with autonomous cars? Find out in the premiere episode of AI: Hype vs. Reality, a new podcast and video series in which Jessica Chobot, veteran host of Nerdist News and Bizarre States, puts present-day artificial intelligence technology to the test in real-world situations. And separates the hype from reality. In this inaugural episode, “AI That Drives”, Jessica talks with Dell Technologies’ emerging tech lead, Dave Graham, to get some context behind the hype around self-driving cars and what’s standing in the way of autonomous cars taking over our roadways. Guest Ram Vasudevan from the University of Michigan discusses the #1 concern—safety—and the data behind predicting pedestrian behavior. And guest Tim Sylvester explains his company’s, Integrated Roadways, solution to moving mass amounts of data between cars and between the car and the road—turning the road itself into a smart wireless network. Finally, after Jessica speaks with Ragavan Thurairatnam, co-founder and chief of machine learning at Dessa about the challenges of programming self-driving cars, she heads to the University of Toronto to take an experimental autonomous car named Zeus out for a spin. Hear how her adventure ends (spoiler: not everything goes according to program) and decide for yourself: self-driving cars—hype or reality?