Is Artificial General Intelligence Required for Safe Autonomous Vehicles? | SRES Fireside Chat
There’s an ongoing debate in the AV safety community: can autonomous vehicles be made safe using today’s specialized AI, or is artificial general intelligence (AGI) required?
In this fireside-style conversation, SRES partners Jody Nelson, Gokul Krithivasan, and Bill Taylor sat down to explore the technical challenges, industry perspectives, and implications for autonomy safety.
Watch the full discussion below:
Meet the Speakers
Jody Nelson — Co-Founder & Managing Partner, SRES
Jody brings 20+ years of automotive safety experience in development, consulting, and audits. He approaches every project with the passion and care that his own family will ride in that vehicle. He began his career at Daimler AG in high voltage safety, EMC, software, and functional safety. In 2010 he co-founded kVA, and across kVA and now SRES, he has trained and supported hundreds of OEM, supplier, and semiconductor teams.
Gokul Krithivasan — Co-Founder & Managing Partner, SRES
Gokul has 12+ years of experience in functional safety and AV safety, including leading development of robotaxis, commercial vehicles, and delivery robots. A certified expert in ISO 26262, ISO 21448, and ISO 8800, he has trained 1,000+ professionals and executives worldwide. At kVA, where he met Jody and Bill, he built global safety and cybersecurity teams across three continents; today at SRES he helps organizations deliver responsibly safe and secure products.
Bill Taylor — Partner, SRES
Bill brings decades of experience in functional safety, AV safety, and responsible AI. As co-founder of kVA, he helped set industry benchmarks for safety-critical development. At kVA and SRES, he has trained thousands of engineers, published over 20 technical papers, and earned awards from SAE and IEEE. He is dedicated to guiding organizations at the intersection of technology, safety, and responsibility.
About the Series
The idea for a series of Fireside Chats traces back to the very early days of Jody and Bill’s work together. In one of their first training sessions, a tricky FMEDA discussion left participants frustrated. That evening, the two of them stayed up late sketching a new way to explain it — an approach that ultimately found its way into the second edition of ISO 26262.
That moment sparked a tradition of technical discussions that has continued for years, now with the SRES team. These sessions have become a cornerstone of how we work — exploring difficult questions, challenging assumptions, and pushing toward better answers.
With this first Fireside Chat, we’re opening that tradition to the broader safety community. Each session will bring the same candid, technical conversations that shape our work to a public forum.
Want to go deeper?
At SRES, we help companies develop responsibly safe and secure products through training and consulting in functional safety, cybersecurity, autonomous safety, and responsible AI.
Explore our upcoming trainings here: sres.ai/training
