Nauto Chief Executive Officer Stefan Heck wants to support drivers in an automotive industry that is becoming increasingly autonomous. An Austrian native-turned-America-based-entrepreneur, he has been working with neural networks for more than 30 years, far longer than “artificial intelligence” as we now know it has been around. You could say that he’s driven change in the industry, referring to Nauto’s mission of using AI to enhance the trucking industry.
Either way, Heck’s work is helping shape a business that’s fundamental to American commerce but that, at this moment, is in the throes of a potentially generational change. While some companies are focused on autonomous vehicles, Heck said in a 2023 interview, it would take “approximately another decade” for AI software to reach the 99.9% threshold he believes is paramount for widespread adoption in the ground shipping space.
For now, then, Nauto is supporting human drivers with AI at a fraction of the cost it would take for a company to run a fully automated fleet. “For instance,” he said, “we develop computer vision to identify objects—say, cars approaching a neighboring lane—and assess the risks they pose to a driver. Yet the difference is that our company produces computer and sensor packages that cost about $500, as compared to the price of a $200,000 automated car.”
This logical approach, as well as his prescience about the value of artificial intelligence, are evident from the very beginning of Heck’s career. He is a Stanford graduate, and he earned a PhD in philosophy and cognitive science (with a focus on AI) from the University of California, San Diego in 1996. Almost 30 years later, the industry has finally started to catch up with him, and not, as it so often is, the other way around.
The most important part of Nauto’s work so far, he explains, is helping correct for predictable human error. “The breakthrough in Nauto’s work is that it surfaces the unconscious risks we take as drivers and thereby enables us to create for the driver what I informally call “Oh sh*t!” moments in which they can actively recognize their dangerous behaviors behind the wheel.”
That sounds like something we all could use. And with Heck at the helm, we will get there, as long as he keeps on truckin’.
