A roboticist and essential member of the group that developed Google’s self-driving car is leaving the company, the latest in a string of departures by crucial technologists working on the autonomous automobile project.
Chris Urmson, a Carnegie Mellon University research scientist had joined Google in 2009 to help produce the then-secret effort. He took over leadership of the group after Sebastian Thrun, the Stanford computer scientist and creator of Google X lab, left in 2013.
Johnny Luu, a spokesperson for Alphabet, the parents business of X, the company’s research department that supervises the automobile job, validated Mr. Urmson was preparing to leave.
“Seven years earlier, the concept that an automobile might drive itself wasn’t much more than a concept. Chris has been a crucial force for the job, helping the team move from a research study phase to a point where this lifesaving innovation will soon become a truth. He departs with our hottest desires,” Mr. Luu composed in an e-mail message.
The departures followed Google’s choice last year to work with John Krafcik, the former president and primary of Hyundai America, to be chief of the job task, as part of a strategy to spin the effort out as a stand-alone business under the Alphabet umbrella.
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New York City’s “Ground Zero” is the World Transportation Center (WTC), the point of origin for America’s new self-driving-car system.
When you search “World Transportation Center” on the Google Maps app, Manhattan’s former World Trade Center (WTC) comes up.