Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tesla hires Andrej Karpathy

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 327 posts

Re: Tesla hires Andrej Karpathy

#261

Post by oblio »

justin66 wrote: post #251
oblio wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The notion that the low end cars will take decades longer is very, very ridiculous.

Ummm... how many cheap cars have: adaptive cruise control or lane assist? Both technologies have been available for expensive cars for what now? 15 years?

Really cheap cars don't even have automatic gearboxes (or they are bought without them 90% of the time, outside of the US).

By "cheap car" I mean something cheaper than $20000 and "really cheap" would be below $12-15000.

Re: Tesla hires Andrej Karpathy

#262

Post by unityByFreedom »

koja86 wrote: post #185
Animats wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

How could Tesla avoid retrofitting if they are unable to solve full self driving with cameras alone? Their new vehicles would have lidar, and old customers who were promised FSD in their models would seem to be legally entitled to it, given that Tesla is currently selling that feature as a product, even though it isn't functional.

Re: Tesla hires Andrej Karpathy

#263

Post by justin66 »

oblio wrote: post #261
justin66 wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The notion that the low end cars will take decades longer is very, very ridiculous.

Ummm... how many cheap cars have: adaptive cruise control or lane assist? Both technologies have been available for expensive cars for what now? 15 years? Really cheap cars don't even have automatic gearboxes (or they are bought without them 90% of the time, outside of the US). By "cheap car" I mean something cheaper than $20000 and "really cheap" would be below $12-15000.

Ok, with "really cheap" you're talking about a species of cars that I'm unfamiliar with.

Here in the US, the sensors and control fly by wire that Lexus used a few years ago have largely trickled down to the Corolla and the like as a standard feature. The differences between making autonomy work on low end and high end cars will be purely a software problem. That's not the kind of additional work that takes thirty years.

Re: Tesla hires Andrej Karpathy

#264

Post by unityByFreedom »

pscsbs wrote: post #25
ccorda wrote: post #14

Seems to be taking Chris Lattner's place: https://twitter.com/clattner_llvm/status/877341760812232704

Wow! Tesla's official statement: "Chris just wasn’t the right fit for Tesla, and we’ve decided to make a change. We wish him the best." [0] Chris's response: "Turns out that Tesla isn't a good fit for me after all. I'm interested to hear about interesting roles for a seasoned engineering leader!" I don't think I've ever seen a tech company throw an employee under the bus so publicly. I wonder what Lattner did to warr…

> I wonder what Lattner did to warrant such a public separation?

Failed to make AP2 work well with cameras alone would be my guess. Tesla is hitting the glass ceiling with its sensor hardware and the future isn't going to be pretty. Expect more changes in engineering leadership until Musk realizes he needs better data (sensors) for his neural nets.

Re: Tesla hires Andrej Karpathy

#265

Post by oblio »

justin66 wrote: post #263
oblio wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ummm... how many cheap cars have: adaptive cruise control or lane assist? Both technologies have been available for expensive cars for what now? 15 years? Really cheap cars don't even have automatic gearboxes (or they are bought without them 90% of the time, outside of the US). By "cheap car" I mean something cheaper than $20000 and "really cheap" would be below $12-15000.

Ok, with "really cheap" you're talking about a species of cars that I'm unfamiliar with. Here in the US, the sensors and control fly by wire that Lexus used a few years ago have largely trickled down to the Corolla and the like as a standard feature. The differences between making autonomy work on low end and high end cars will be purely a software problem. That's not the kind of additional work that takes thirty yea…

The difference is not purely a software problem.

It's a price problem since you need to install a bazillion sensors, motors and other thingies which are basically used only for one purpose.

And regarding really cheap, you're on HackerNews, ergo less likely to ever meet those. But it's usually cheap models from cheaper brands such as Dacia, Hyunday, Kia, Tata, several of the Chinese brands. I doubt most people you know actually own one :)

Re: Tesla hires Andrej Karpathy

#266

Post by sixQuarks »

unityByFreedom wrote: post #259
sixQuarks wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My thoughts exactly. Elon Musk is not known for vaporware or BSing. If he says something is doable, there's a good reason for it. Musk has a combination of vision, an understanding of physics, and execution ability unmatched by any other person (in my opinion). To say that he has painted himself in a corner is highly misinformed.

He doesn't have any educational background in AI or it's underpinnings. Running open AI doesn't instantly make him an expert. The above comment is from an expert with experience in the self driving space.

his educational background also didn't include rocket science but yet spaceX has succeeded.

If you'd like to put money where your mouth is, I'd happily do a wager with you. Tesla will be the first to have a fully autonomous vehicle - care to bet against that?

Re: Tesla hires Andrej Karpathy

#267

Post by greglindahl »

pinouchon wrote: post #154
_ph_ wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know, no car manufacturer ships cars equipped with LIDAR. Nor do they seem to have a camera setup as extensive as Tesla. So I fail to see how Tesla has painted itself into a corner. The worst case is, that they are not reaching full autonomy with the current hardware setup. It certainly would be a big marketing blunder if they don't, but if necessary they can add LIDAR to the production, if they choose to…

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

I think most people think LIDAR is going to eventually be inexpensive -- even Tesla has a few test cars with LIDAR. However, it's a fair weather sensor, so you'll have to do a lot more for level 5.

Re: Tesla hires Andrej Karpathy

#268

Post by sbierwagen »

manmal wrote: post #218
sbierwagen wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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..

Oh? http://www.cbsnews.com/news/google-alphabet-moonshot-project...

The whole reason the car project got spun out into Waymo was to fast-track commercialization. They do not in fact have an infinite amount of money.

Re: Tesla hires Andrej Karpathy

#269

Post by Animats »

make3 wrote: post #210
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…

They really only hired a well known guy cool guy at a post with a lot of exposure. Your comment feels like pretty intense overanalysis to me.

Their previous guy quit. That indicates a problem.

Re: Tesla hires Andrej Karpathy

#270

Post by tim333 »

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…

>Tesla will try to ship a self-driving system before [...] People will die because of this.

On the other hand pushing the envelope on self driving technology using cheap sensors will probably help reduce the world's 1m annual auto deaths earlier than otherwise. Thousands of people will not die because of this.

Post reply on HN