Live data from Hacker News

I’m taking some time away from Comma

geohot.github.io

191–200 of 437 posts

Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma

#192
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…

> he was only working on problems several orders of magnitude smaller in scope Isn't that kind of the point? Tesla would have L4 if the architecture was built right, but it wasn't, and now they're scrambling. I think George made it very clear that the architecture is what these companies spending billions are getting wrong. Tech debt is more expensive than you think at the cutting edge. You know what is total fluff?…

> I think George made it very clear that the architecture is what these companies spending billions are getting wrong. Tech debt is more expensive than you think at the cutting edge.

And yet the architectures he disapproves are the only ones who have shown fully autonomous driving is possible. There are driverless robotaxis running now, albeit in small areas but expanding.

> You know what is total fluff? Tesla FSD. Disgusting. At least comma is honest about their hardware, and that's about all it comes down to.

I fully agree.

Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen this change dramatically in the last few years. The people I knew 10 years ago who were the sortof frighteningly brilliant hackers have almost all become religious (mostly traditional Catholics). I'm not saying this is an objective truth, just that this has been my experience.

I think part of that (specifically Catholic) stems from the fact that it's one of the few religions that is compatible with a scientific understanding of the world, where science is seen as a worthwhile study of creation, and not something that's dangerous and evil (like many modern fundamentalist groups seem to think). The danger IMO comes when people tie their religious belief too strongly to political movements, o…

> I think part of that (specifically Catholic) stems from the fact that it's one of the few religions that is compatible with a scientific understanding of the world,

I went to Catholic school growing up, and I did not see anything in religion classes that involved updating models of the world that conflicted with data. In fact, it was the exact opposite.

Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma

#194
post #161

what's going to happen with the comma bodies? when i saw the yt video of him explaining how the next challenge is to solve AGI and for that you need on device learning it really made sense to me. Is he stepping out of that path completely?

From the article, it seems he's focusing on the raw performance side of Machine Learning á la tinygrad[0].

[0]: https://github.com/geohot/tinygrad

Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma

#195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> SAE Level 2 is the most practical self-driving we are ever going to get. The bet is on this though -- what's impractical about having L4 fleets in major cities that replace Uber/Lyft? Just because you can't personally own one doesn't mean that in 10 years they can't be pretty ubiquitous and practical, particularly for city dwellers, which is most people. I'd bet that your statement is wrong on this basis. L4 cars a…

Well, not everyone lives in San Francisco, and no one wants to take an Uber literally everywhere. So, like most people, I want to own my self-driving car. And I personally don't think the industry is mature enough to accept the realities and limitations of the technology we work with to just say, "Hey, actually, we can let attentive drivers basically be hands-free for 80+% of their drives." And to me, that would be g…

Not everyone wants to own a car either, and everyone owning a car is not exactly environmentally sustainable. Replacing Uber & Lyft with robots would add a ton of value and be practical for a very large percentage of the population.

> And I personally don't think the industry is mature enough to accept the realities and limitations of the technology we work with to just say, "Hey, actually, we can let attentive drivers basically be hands-free for 80+% of their drives."

Uh isn't this what Tesla, GM, Mobileye, Comma, and many others are doing? Basically every player in "the industry" wants this & is working on it -- FWIW I think L2 is fine, but there need to be more safety features because the number of folks who've slept while their flawed L2 system drove them is truly alarming. I'm less worried about their safety and more worried about the folks they might crash into.

Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma

#196
post #67

Didn’t know this guy was a Christian, but his theology seems muddled to me. No I don’t think non-Christians think the Bible is a useful origin story. No there is no chosen one, and the idea doesn’t come from Christianity (unless he means second coming?), but rather the narrative form (as hotz seems to somewhat understand with the heroes journey mention). I’d suggest some strong psychedelics to crack the ego and take…

[deleted]

Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma

#197
geohot was in many ways a portal for me—watching him code changed my life. Got me in the habit of always looking for ways to move faster.

I think he puts a little too much pressure on himself. George Washington didn't write the constitution and pass it himself—he was just one player in a team effort of many sovereign geohot like figures.

Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma

#199
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…

Not even geohot is asserting that "SAE Level 2 is the most practical self-driving we are ever going to get", his assertion is that he thinks nobody is going to get there in the next 10 years.

He may be right that we won't get there broadly for 10 years, but I think that's a rationalization of how things have gone for him, and the fact that the methods he has worked on don't have a chance of getting there, rather than the thesis he had when he started comma. Because if this was your thesis, there was really no reason to get into the space when he did.

In particular, Waymo One is already an L4 driver. It operates completely autonomously and passengers do not have the option of taking over. I don't know how often they get stuck and have to call someone to do roadside service, etc, but clearly in some areas it is already feasible. So the question is whether this is possible in dense urban areas or not.

And if you're just looking at SAE 2, the main competitors in this space, Mobileye and Tesla are doing way better than comma.

I definitely thought progress would be faster here, but I don't think we're anywhere near as far away from useful systems as geohot argues.

Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma

#200

what a loser. Just recently, I saw a stream of him denying remote work, life and work balance and refusal to state if compensation was competitive in comma.ai. He cannot grow this company because he will never attract the best people with his stupid and old mentality. Now he leaves the company. This guy is a foolish drugie.

I disagree with you about the guy as a person, I think he's great, but I was considering working there and his requirement that you have to move to SV and work in the office was a deal breaker. The guy seems to understand how our kind of work can be done from anywhere, he seems interested in developing technology to enable self sovereignty, yet it seems he has blinders on on that one issue. I'm sure he has some reasoning for it and I'd love to hear it, I doubt it's convincing but if it's him at the very least it will be novel or interesting (I hope).
Post reply on HN