GoKawiilFrom workshop to factory, compute is helping speed up progress over manual work. In Q3 of 2025, Bot Auto achieved its first “driver-out” run on public roads: a trip in which the truck drove itself with no human behind the wheel, and in our case, no humans in the cab at all. This is a milestone reached by only a tiny handful of AV trucking programs. From the founding of the company to that milestone, we spent just $212,552 on one category of work that is usually very expensive in AI: paying people to manually label training data—for example, drawing boxes around cars and pedestrians—so a neural network can learn from them.
The industrial revolution now reshaping AI
Why This Matters
This article highlights a significant breakthrough in AI and autonomous vehicle technology, demonstrating how advancements in compute power are enabling cost-effective and fully autonomous trucking. Such progress signals a transformative shift in the industrial landscape, reducing reliance on manual labor and accelerating deployment of self-driving solutions. This development not only benefits the tech industry by lowering operational costs but also promises increased safety and efficiency for consumers and logistics providers.
Key Takeaways
- Autonomous trucks achieved their first driver-out run on public roads in Q3 2025.
- The company spent just $212,552 on training data, significantly reducing costs.
- Advancements in compute are driving rapid progress in AI and industrial automation.
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