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Tesla hires Andrej Karpathy

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Re: Tesla hires Andrej Karpathy

#211

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

pvg wrote: post #113
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't take it this way at all. Why can't "he's not the right fit" mean exactly that? People can be brilliant but just not right fit the operating processes and culture at a company. I didn't really read anything negative into it from either side.

Sure, you didn't but as you can see in this thread, it's trivially interpretable in lots of other ways. Which is exactly why it is usually not put that way. This doesn't seem like a complicated thing at all.

As another poster said, though, you're basically asking for more BS, wishy washy corporate-speak, wish is often what people on this forum rail against. Damned if you do, damned in you don't.

Re: Tesla hires Andrej Karpathy

#212

Post by TeMPOraL »

espadrine wrote: post #182
freyir wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Sur…

The trick is in our wetware. What the brain does with visual input is not just trivial object recognition. It relies on a complex internal model of the world to both augment the object recognition and to sometimes discard the visual data as invalid.

So sure, theoretically cameras would be enough. But we're not yet there with software, we can't use the camera input well enough. So if you can side-step the need for not-yet-invented ML methods by simply adding a LIDAR to a sensor suite, then it's an obvious way to go.

Compare with powered flight: we didn't get very far by trying to copy the way birds do it. The trick is in the super-light materials birds are made of, and the energy efficiency of their organisms. We only succeeded at powered flight when we brute-forced it by strapping a gasoline engine onto a bunch of wooden planks.

Re: Tesla hires Andrej Karpathy

#214

Post by chronic7ul »

mbaha wrote: post #160
askafriend wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you make the switch from being a normal developer to doing AI specialist work?

Also interested, yes.

I went back for a PhD. I know a lot of people can't do this, but this is the reason why there are few AI specialists. You just can't become an expert by reading blogs and even research papers online. You need the full specialist environment, from discussions outside the bathroom to the drawings on the whiteboard.

Re: Tesla hires Andrej Karpathy

#215

Post by oblio »

kamaal wrote: post #188
Matthias247 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

That's at least 4-5 automotive cycles away, IMO (so 25-30 year away).

And that's for the high end. The low end cars are probably 50-60 years away, IMO.

Re: Tesla hires Andrej Karpathy

#216

Post by bitJericho »

RealityVoid wrote: post #173
pinouchon wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Nissan has bet that in a few years, LIDAR will be inexpensive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfRqNAhAe6c

I wonder if I want to put my money betting on this how should I proceed?

Invest in the trucking industry?

Re: Tesla hires Andrej Karpathy

#217

Post by manmal »

owenversteeg wrote: post #203
fooker wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Human beings can not drive in all conditions in India. Just to get our car out of the garage, I had to plead and negotiate with N vegetable vendors with makeshift stores on the road. Also: bicycles, motorbikes, rickshaws(in human pulled, CNG and electric varieties!)and pedestrians mixed in traffic everywhere.

Yep, I have a feeling that for driving in India/Iran/Pakistan/Bangladesh you're going to need a strong AI to negotiate with the street vendors. In Iran I even had a particularly... enthusiastic flower seller actually maneuver himself to make it even harder to drive away. Not to take away from anyone's work in this area, but I have no idea how long it'll take to go from "works in America" to "works in India". In many…

This will require something like Rick's (from Rick and Morty) car/spaceship.

Re: Tesla hires Andrej Karpathy

#218

Post by manmal »

sbierwagen wrote: post #130
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?

Classic engineering ethics problem. Management says they have to ship "right now", but you know that if you do, 1 in a 1000 customers will die. If you wait a couple years, that'll go down to 1 in 1000000, but your company might go bankrupt. Engineers at Takata and in GM's ignition key department made one choice, Waymo seems to be making the other.

Waymo has the benefit of not going bankrupt if they wait another couple years..

Re: Tesla hires Andrej Karpathy

#219

Post by geodel »

adamnemecek wrote: post #62
fooker wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bet Chris Lattner is heading to Google.

If google were to embrace swift that would be spicy.

I would think Google would already be using Swift for their iOS apps and all. As for other stuff they have lots of choice and Swift can't be ruled out. After all, they also use Typescript developed by MS.

I think many want rewrites of fine, working software to show language's worth. This is startup or single developer stuff, large professional companies rarely rewrite stuff on whim.

Re: Tesla hires Andrej Karpathy

#220

Post by espadrine »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #212
espadrine wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Sur…

The trick is in our wetware. What the brain does with visual input is not just trivial object recognition. It relies on a complex internal model of the world to both augment the object recognition and to sometimes discard the visual data as invalid. So sure, theoretically cameras would be enough. But we're not yet there with software, we can't use the camera input well enough. So if you can side-step the need for not…

> It relies on a complex internal model of the world to both augment the object recognition and to sometimes discard the visual data as invalid.

That in particular is what makes the hiring fascinating. This problem is Andrej Karpathy’s expertise[0]. His CNN/RNN designs have reached comfortable results, in particular showcasing the ability to identify elements of a source image, and the relationship between different parts of the image.

The speed at which those techniques improve is also stunning. I didn’t expect CNNs to solve Go and image captioning so fast, but here we are!

I think the principles are already there; a few tweaks and a careful design is all it takes to beat the average driver.

[0]: http://cs.stanford.edu/people/karpathy/main.pdf

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