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I’m taking some time away from Comma

geohot.github.io

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Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma

#131

Post by awestroke »

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #23
awestroke wrote: post #3

Hotz has always come across as very arrogant to me. Claims everyone else is doing things the wrong way, claims he can do it himself in 24h, then never delivers on his words.

This is a weird comment to me, the guy is clearly exceptional. He's written security exploits that have been seen across the industry and in publications and has touched various spaces across engineering. His insights on self-driving in particular were just far ahead enough in their time that now Tesla Engineering is doing what he claimed was the only practical way to deal with SAE level 2 driving, without radar.

Can't he be arrogant and exceptional at the same time?

Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma

#132

Post by OkayPhysicist »

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #90
ra7 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His insights on self driving cars are total fluff once you realize he was only working on problems several orders of magnitude smaller in scope than the ones spending billions are attempting to solve. Autonomous driving is more than just making lane-keep on highways work with a camera mounted to the windshield and requires more than just "hacking". His insights do indicate one thing: that he doesn't understand the ri…

I mean you can say that all you want, but the proof of the self-driving pudding is in the driving, and SAE Level 2 is the most practical self-driving we are ever going to get. I don't think there's anything wrong with trying to refine that approach as much as openpilot did, and honestly if there was fruit in SAE Level 3 and above, I feel like we would have seen it by now, but we haven't. I have no idea what you mean…

That's a bold claim against fully-autonomous driving. Does operating a motor vehicle require qualia? If not, what else makes a human uniquely capable of doing it? It may be a hard problem to crack, but asserting that it's impossible is pretty unfounded.

Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma

#133

Post by bayindirh »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #111
giancarlostoro wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to talk to him on one of those IRC networks for iOS hacking, forgot the name, but a good old friend of mine was involved in the scene, so I dropped in. He is definitely a skilled individual, but he lacks the key thing I think all true senior engineers need: humility. Without humility you're going to find yourself bikeshedding and wasting time and effort on things that may actually not be attainable within your…

I think I have to disagree with humility in engineering. There's a certain arrogance intrinsic to engineering, in that you have to be capable of believing you can find a better solution to a problem than literally every other person in history. Obviously it needs to be tempered in interactions with the outside world, but without that core idea, an engineer can't do their job effectively, like a surgeon who loses thei…

> There's a certain arrogance intrinsic to engineering...

I don't agree. You can take pride in what you've accomplished, and you should do that, but you can be humble at the same time. Accepting there will be better individuals than you or better solutions than yours is both sobering and motivating to be and do better.

When you accept that you're very smart, but not the smartest, you unlock the potential to be one of the the 10x-100x engineers others aspire.

I'm a very motivated individual, and did some pretty impressive things back in the day, and I'm still capable of doing these things. However, I'm not the best, or won't be the best for long. This is how the world works.

Being able to say thanks, and being able to say sorry goes a long way, and takes you beyond where unabashed arrogance takes you.

Lastly, arrogance makes you fragile. Fragility is not good under stress, and under real world circumstances.

Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma

#134

Post by throwaway5752 »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #111
giancarlostoro wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to talk to him on one of those IRC networks for iOS hacking, forgot the name, but a good old friend of mine was involved in the scene, so I dropped in. He is definitely a skilled individual, but he lacks the key thing I think all true senior engineers need: humility. Without humility you're going to find yourself bikeshedding and wasting time and effort on things that may actually not be attainable within your…

I think I have to disagree with humility in engineering. There's a certain arrogance intrinsic to engineering, in that you have to be capable of believing you can find a better solution to a problem than literally every other person in history. Obviously it needs to be tempered in interactions with the outside world, but without that core idea, an engineer can't do their job effectively, like a surgeon who loses thei…

That isn't the best example, because surgical error due to the stereotypical cowboy surgeon was common and measurably improved with better process, ie surgical checklists: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24973186/

Lack of humility can lead to the wrong limbs being amputated. The parallels to understanding your personal limits and knowing when to trust other people directly applies here. Confidence != arrogance.

Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma

#135

Post by prvit »

capableweb wrote: post #37
prvit wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Geohots actual track record isn’t that impressive though, he’s just one exploit dev with an OK portfolio. >edit: apparently this is a hot take to some, but no real substantive refuting of what's being said- only appeals to greater authority. "Well so and so was smarter" Do you happen to have substantive evidence to back up the original claim?

It's always fun to see anonymous users saying someone else isn't "that impressive though". He managed to breach the security of three different platforms (iOS, Android and PlayStation) across multiple devices, which feels a lot like more than most security researchers manage to do in their lifetime, while geohot is about 35 by now. Or, you have some good examples that the average security researcher have a better tra…

> Or, you have some good examples that the average security researcher have a better track record than that?

Geohot can be simultaneously be significantly above average, and not anywhere near as special as some people on HN like to represent him.

He certainly doesn’t have anywhere near the track record to not seem downright unhinged in the context of this blog post.

Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma

#136

Post by ra7 »

taeric wrote: post #87
andrewmcwatters wrote: post #49

George’s insights on self-driving cars remind me of when you get the rare exceptional engineer in your company who knows 100% what he or she is talking about down to the exact implementation level and all of the alternatives, and leadership totally ignores them because they foolhardily believe this kid can’t possibly be right—without asking engineering questions to test to see if they’re right about the engineer bein…

I'm curious what his insights were? Are those collected somewhere? Asking as someone that has largely not been following the field. Not challenging, genuinely curious.

https://blog.comma.ai/a-100x-investment-part-1/

https://blog.comma.ai/a-100x-investment-part-2/

It's basically a bunch of apples-to-oranges comparisons that don't make sense.

Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma

#138

Post by rootusrootus »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #111
giancarlostoro wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to talk to him on one of those IRC networks for iOS hacking, forgot the name, but a good old friend of mine was involved in the scene, so I dropped in. He is definitely a skilled individual, but he lacks the key thing I think all true senior engineers need: humility. Without humility you're going to find yourself bikeshedding and wasting time and effort on things that may actually not be attainable within your…

I think I have to disagree with humility in engineering. There's a certain arrogance intrinsic to engineering, in that you have to be capable of believing you can find a better solution to a problem than literally every other person in history. Obviously it needs to be tempered in interactions with the outside world, but without that core idea, an engineer can't do their job effectively, like a surgeon who loses thei…

I agree that arrogance is common, but I'm not sure I'd call it necessary. I know a lot of good engineers who are very confident that they are good enough to build a great solution, but not arrogant.

Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma

#140

Post by whoisjuan »

gateorade wrote: post #100
nynx wrote: post #27

It strikes me as surprising that George Hotz is religious. Very few people I’ve met with similar personalities are.

I don't think this post indicates that he's religious. If you read some of his other stuff, he's clearly a person with philosophical interests. There are lots of people who read the Bible out of a philosophical/mythological/anthropological interest rather than a religious one.

The Bible is the fundamental book by which has driven many human accomplishments and debacles. You don’t need to be religious to understand it's impact in the modern human western society.
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