I’m taking some time away from Comma • Hacker News Board

Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma

#221

Post by criddell » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 4:58 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #193

geerlingguy wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What are some examples where the data is in conflict with modern Catholic teachings?

Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma

#222

Post by melony » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 4:59 PM UTC

jocker12 wrote: post #148

thepasswordis wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>autonomous cars are no closer to reality today than they were 5 years ago Why do people keep printing things like this, which are objectively wrong? I have had a completely autonomous waymo come to my location, pick me up, and take me to another location. That didn't exist five years ago, it does exist now. How is this not "closer" than it was 5 years ago when it literally exists now, and didn't exist then?

"I have had a completely autonomous waymo come to my location, pick me up, and take me to another location." - Waymo uses 3d mapping, limited geofencing, remote operators and mobile roadside assistance teams because those cars are not even close to any type of autonomy. Those cars are "mice" in a well designed and designated (inch mapped) maze. The car without a driver in the driver's seat is like David Copperfield f…

Does it matter? They are functional and safe enough for most sunbelt cities. We may not have FSD from day one but what we do have is leagues ahead of what's possible 5 years ago.

Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma

#223

Post by denimnerd42 » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 4:59 PM UTC

comma.ai has too much regulatory and third party (car mfg.) risk.

it's also too expensive when the most compelling features are upgrades to 2015-2018 level technology. i could instead do without and then upgrade to a new car with stop and go cruise control, lane minding, etc.

Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma

#224

Post by turminal » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 4:59 PM UTC

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #14

p0wn wrote: post #11

One of my favorite tech articles of all time involved this guy. He was showing off the self driving capabilities of his framework and took a reporter out on a drive. Everything went well and while they were wrapping up the interview the reporter said "Well I bet you're just driving around all the time hands free, it must be amazing" and Hotz says "Oh well I just got it working this morning". Classic. I love it. My ki…

That kind of attitude is great for editor or compiler or game development. It is absolutely the wrong attitude for self-driving cars or anything that is safety critical.

Compiler development is (often indirectly) safety critical too.

Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma

#225

Post by postalrat » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 4:59 PM UTC

rs_rs_rs_rs_rs wrote: post #10

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.

I just want to point out that Hotz delivered when he was doing hacking related work. He's very talented, I don't want people to think he's a scam artist.

He's talented and arrogant and promises more than he can deliver.

Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma

#226

Post by ra7 » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 4:59 PM UTC

unicornhose wrote: post #215

ra7 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SAE Level 4 driving is several orders of magnitude harder than SAE Level 2. You are either good enough to drive without requiring a driver or you are not. There is a reason developing L4 systems cost billions of dollars. George Hotz thinks Comma does the job with only a fraction of the spending compared to the likes of Waymo, Cruise, Zoox, but fails to realize his product also does only a fraction of what the others…

Hotz’s product should be compared to what Waymo can do right now , not what it’s trying to do.

The point is Hotz's product shouldn't be compared to Waymo at all. One is driverless and the other is not. It should be compared to the likes of Tesla Autopilot or driver assist systems offered by other OEMs.

Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma

#227

Post by agentultra » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 5:00 PM UTC

andreilys wrote: post #187

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 personally don't see AI getting anywhere any time soon Totally, like there's no way an AI company could hit $80M revenue in Also there's no way that it could generate audio/image/video/text that would trick the average person that this was generated by an AI. [0] https://twitter.com/tszzl/status/1583357703337885697

These are all examples of scaling and miniaturization. It's impressive to be sure but nothing that wasn't already done. Fundamentally we're still running mostly the same algorithms and have been spending the last however many years optimizing and scaling in various areas from hardware to labelling and automation.

That's why "lol it's just spreadsheets and if-statements," is kind of funny: there's a grain of truth to it.

Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma

#228

Post by Barrin92 » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 5:00 PM UTC

stale2002 wrote: post #130

monktastic1 wrote: post #12

Can't say I care much about what "George Hotz" is doing, but this line struck me as particularly silly: > And even if you are an atheist, you probably still accept the bible is the closest thing we have to a human origin story. I can't imagine why he believes so. Apart from the modern materialist origin story, what about all the mythical ones from other cultures? Of all of them, this is my favorite: https://www.youtu…

So, people aren't really understanding the motivations that Geohotz has for looking into this stuff. He is being a bit cryptic about it. Here is a basic summary though. The atheist world, of no life after death, is scary. We have not invented immortality. And even if we do, well there is an even scarier thing called entropy, that will end the universe anyway. There is no escape from death, as far as we know, and this…

>Because if the current atheist world is the real one, then we are doomed.

That kind of discussion always reminds me of a very short poem by Stephen Crane

A man said to the universe:

“Sir, I exist!”

“However,” replied the universe,

“The fact has not created in me

A sense of obligation.”

the second law of thermodynamics has never invoked any sort of feelings of impending spiritual doom, but more importantly even if it did that's hardly a reason to start retreating into fantasies, we're not owed a non-doomed universe, and not even a non-doomed individual life. And on a personal note I' rather take the embrace of the indifferent cold universe over jolly people reading scripture to me for all eternity because the latter sounds more like hell to me than the former but that's subjective I guess.

Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma

#229

Post by nkingsy » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 5:00 PM UTC

ramesh31 wrote: post #189

nkingsy wrote: 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…

>I’d suggest some strong psychedelics to crack the ego and take a look at what’s inside. I'd submit that his use of psychedelics is precisely the issue. There was a really odd "/r/Im14AndThisIsDeep" talk he did a few years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESXOAJRdcwQ It's been a pretty steady decline into run of the mill schizo "demons and angels" talk from him since then.

Interesting. I guess everyone has their own journey. I haven't deluded myself about being the chosen one since I experienced ego death. It has seemed quite clear since then that being alive and alone is strange and temporary.

I'll leave it up for posterity but I stand corrected on the psychedelics part.

Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma

#230

Post by sidpatil » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 5:00 PM UTC

conradev wrote: post #167

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…

> but the fact it’s not far more pervasive in our every day The joke I heard was that AI only refers to technology in the future, and not the past. We use plenty of machine learning models every day: - Every time you use dictation - Every time you use biometrics, like face scanning, to unlock your phone - Every time you use any sort of search engine, news feed, or see an ad - It is an integral part of the field of co…

> The joke I heard was that AI only refers to technology in the future, and not the past.

This is actually known as the AI effect.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_effect