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Tesla hires Andrej Karpathy

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Re: Tesla hires Andrej Karpathy

#181

Post by matthewmacleod »

ryandrake wrote: post #95
kornish wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Karpathy in particular has built an excellent personal brand, lots of which is through his blog. It seems that technically backgrounded "explainers", á la Neil deGrasse Tyson or Richard Feynman, Elon Musk or even Bill Nye, can credibly straddle both expert and layperson worlds. People like to feel like they know what's going on.

Part of me dies inside every time I read the phrase "personal brand". I think it's sad that it is no longer enough to be good at what you do--you need to self-promote, blog, and talk talk talk in order to make it these days. What happened to also recognizing the quiet but competent craftsmen?

I think that depends on what your interpretation of "making it" is.

There area millions of quiet, confident, competent people across industries. People who reliably turn out high-quality products and are well-paid for their work. They get on well with their colleagues and progress with their career at a decent pace. You just don't hear about this much. Doesn't this count as making it?

I'd say that the reason you hear more about people who are well-known is essentially just because they are well-known :)

Re: Tesla hires Andrej Karpathy

#182

Post by espadrine »

freyir wrote: post #143
pkulak wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I kinda tuned out when you mentioned lidar like it's some requirement for autonomous driving. Lidar is AMAZING for giving press demos on sunny days. For the real world with rain, snow, leaves, plastic bags, etc? Useless. The future is radar + cameras + a LOT of software blood, sweat and tears.

That's like saying our eyes are useless because we can't see in the dark.

Our eyes are not LIDAR, though, and we can drive pretty well.

In fact, the reason we have crashes is NOT our eyes’ lack of distance detection through laser return timing — having two eyes is enough for distance appreciation. We have crashes because of attention deficit instead.

At this point, there is no reason to believe that a machine can't achieve and outperform a human on a driving task given the same inputs. Sure, human eyes have 5 million cone cells and 1080p feeds only have 2 million pixels, but 4K has 9 million, and more importantly, that level of precision is unnecessary for regular driving.

And Tesla doesn’t even bet just on the visible spectrum; it also relies on radar.

Re: Tesla hires Andrej Karpathy

#183

Post by nl »

kamaal wrote: post #167
pkulak wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I kinda tuned out when you mentioned lidar like it's some requirement for autonomous driving. Lidar is AMAZING for giving press demos on sunny days. For the real world with rain, snow, leaves, plastic bags, etc? Useless. The future is radar + cameras + a LOT of software blood, sweat and tears.

I will take your self driving car seriously if you can drive it in all conditions in India. Until then its just an attempt to make something that breaks at the next unanticipated exception.

I wouldn't drive in India. And I'm human.

Re: Tesla hires Andrej Karpathy

#184

Post by Capt-RogerOver »

loa_in_ wrote: post #165
freyir wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's like saying our eyes are useless because we can't see in the dark.

You can't really drive in the dark, can you? What if it gets dark for 1 second on a cliffside turn?

It's pretty obvious that a self-driving camera-based software would take advantage of headlights on a car, just like a human does? So it never has to drive in full darkness.

Re: Tesla hires Andrej Karpathy

#185

Post by koja86 »

Animats wrote: post #135
ethanhunt_ wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference between Tesla and Google is that Tesla actually has to ship these cars to customers right now . Wouldn't LIDAR double the cost of a Tesla right now?

Tesla didn't have to ship a car with unusable self-driving hardware. They'll probably have to eat the cost of a retrofit package on some vehicles to make that work. Like the Roadster transmission problem, where they had to replace all the early drivetrains with the two-speed transmission. Nobody has built automotive LIDAR units in volume yet. That's why they're so expensive. It's not an inherently expensive technolog…

Isn't it possible that by the time LIDAR is technically and economically ready for general deployment current Tesla models will have enough mileage and Tesla avoids retrofitting completely?

Re: Tesla hires Andrej Karpathy

#186

Post by kamaal »

bjpirt wrote: post #176
kamaal wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will take your self driving car seriously if you can drive it in all conditions in India. Until then its just an attempt to make something that breaks at the next unanticipated exception.

Made me laugh but it's a very true statement. When I was driving whilst holidaying in India I realised that the main rule of the road was "largest vehicle wins"! This actually made for quite an easy to understand system with few questions of whose right of way it was. bike which makes sense because if you're the one who's going to come off worse in an impact then you really want to give way - especially if you have a…

>>It will be very interesting to see how self driving systems can cope with these local unwritten bylaws.

This is why self driving AI will require Hard AI.

India is a perfect test bed for these people to test their algorithms. And for heaven's sake why would you test it in some place like the US. Cars in US are pretty much trains on road any way.

Re: Tesla hires Andrej Karpathy

#187

Post by saiya-jin »

kamaal wrote: post #167
pkulak wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I kinda tuned out when you mentioned lidar like it's some requirement for autonomous driving. Lidar is AMAZING for giving press demos on sunny days. For the real world with rain, snow, leaves, plastic bags, etc? Useless. The future is radar + cameras + a LOT of software blood, sweat and tears.

I will take your self driving car seriously if you can drive it in all conditions in India. Until then its just an attempt to make something that breaks at the next unanticipated exception.

that is important only if you live in india, or any other 3rd world country with similar disrespect to anything resembling a traffic rule from a mile away.

western world will be perfectly happy with cars that can only drive on our roads, and eventually manufacturers will pick up on other places as well.

look at the potential bright side - this might bring some order to mess one can see daily in bigger cities on roads.

Re: Tesla hires Andrej Karpathy

#188

Post by kamaal »

Matthias247 wrote: post #170
Animats wrote: post #117

What this really reflects is that Tesla has painted itself into a corner. They've shipped vehicles with a weak sensor suite that's claimed to be sufficient to support self-driving, leaving the software for later. Tesla, unlike everybody else who's serious, doesn't have a LIDAR. Now, it's "later", their software demos are about where Google was in 2010, and Tesla has a big problem. This is a really hard problem to do…

> Prediction: 2020 will be the year the big players have self-driving. I think that depends on what you mean with self-driving. My prediction is that in 2020 we will have slightly better driver assistance systems. Maybe a lane assist system which won't kill me if I don't babysit it on a road with construction ongoing and multiple lane markings or if corners get too tight. Maybe some limited self-driving, e.g. only av…

>>I think that depends on what you mean with self-driving.

It means a car that doesn't have a steering wheel, brake and accelerator. That kind of a car is quite far.

Re: Tesla hires Andrej Karpathy

#189

Post by PKop »

Capt-RogerOver wrote: post #184
loa_in_ wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't really drive in the dark, can you? What if it gets dark for 1 second on a cliffside turn?

It's pretty obvious that a self-driving camera-based software would take advantage of headlights on a car, just like a human does? So it never has to drive in full darkness.

You missed the analogy:

Darkness is to eyesight as inclement weather/obstacles is to LIDAR

Re: Tesla hires Andrej Karpathy

#190

Post by jamespo »

kamaal wrote: post #186
bjpirt wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Made me laugh but it's a very true statement. When I was driving whilst holidaying in India I realised that the main rule of the road was "largest vehicle wins"! This actually made for quite an easy to understand system with few questions of whose right of way it was. bike which makes sense because if you're the one who's going to come off worse in an impact then you really want to give way - especially if you have a…

>>It will be very interesting to see how self driving systems can cope with these local unwritten bylaws. This is why self driving AI will require Hard AI. India is a perfect test bed for these people to test their algorithms. And for heaven's sake why would you test it in some place like the US. Cars in US are pretty much trains on road any way.

Because that's where the (easy) money is
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