Francois Chollet is leaving Google

#1

Post by xnx » Wed, Nov 13, 2024, 10:28 PM UTC

Francois Chollet is leaving Google
developers.googleblog.com

Re: Francois Chollet is leaving Google

#2

Post by tadeegan » Wed, Nov 13, 2024, 11:18 PM UTC

I guess they realized muilti-backend keras is futile? I never liked the tf.keras apis and the docs always promosed multi backend but then I guess they were never able to deliver that without breaking keras 3 changes. And even now.... "Keras 3 includes a brand new distribution API, the keras.distribution namespace, currently implemented for the JAX backend (coming soon to the TensorFlow and PyTorch backends)". I don't believe it. They are too different to reconcile under 1 api. And even if you could, I dont really see the benefit. Torch and Flax have similar goals to Keras and are imo better.

Re: Francois Chollet is leaving Google

#3

Post by max_ » Wed, Nov 13, 2024, 11:19 PM UTC

I wonder what he will be working on?

Maybe he figured out a model that beats ARC-AGI by 85%?

Re: Francois Chollet is leaving Google

#4

Post by minimaxir » Wed, Nov 13, 2024, 11:23 PM UTC

Genuine question: who is using Keras in production nowadays? I've done a few work projects in Keras/TensorFlow over the years and it created a lot of technical debt and lost time debugging it, with said issues disappearing once I switched to PyTorch.

The training loop with Keras for simple model is indeed easier and faster than PyTorch oriented helpers (e.g. Lightning AI, Hugging Face accelerate) but much, much less flexible.

Re: Francois Chollet is leaving Google

#5

Post by _giorgio_ » Wed, Nov 13, 2024, 11:26 PM UTC

[flagged]

Re: Francois Chollet is leaving Google

#6

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Nov 13, 2024, 11:41 PM UTC

_giorgio_ wrote: post #5

[flagged]

[deleted]

Re: Francois Chollet is leaving Google

#7

Post by ClassyJacket » Wed, Nov 13, 2024, 11:49 PM UTC

_giorgio_ wrote: post #5

[flagged]

Keras is not a language

Re: Francois Chollet is leaving Google

#8

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Nov 13, 2024, 11:50 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Francois Chollet is leaving Google

#9

Post by modeless » Wed, Nov 13, 2024, 11:52 PM UTC

tadeegan wrote: post #2

I guess they realized muilti-backend keras is futile? I never liked the tf.keras apis and the docs always promosed multi backend but then I guess they were never able to deliver that without breaking keras 3 changes. And even now.... "Keras 3 includes a brand new distribution API, the keras.distribution namespace, currently implemented for the JAX backend (coming soon to the TensorFlow and PyTorch backends)". I don't…

Why would you interpret this as Google disliking Keras? Seems a lot more likely he was poached by Anthropic.

Re: Francois Chollet is leaving Google

#10

Post by dools » Wed, Nov 13, 2024, 11:56 PM UTC

minimaxir wrote: post #4

Genuine question: who is using Keras in production nowadays? I've done a few work projects in Keras/TensorFlow over the years and it created a lot of technical debt and lost time debugging it, with said issues disappearing once I switched to PyTorch. The training loop with Keras for simple model is indeed easier and faster than PyTorch oriented helpers (e.g. Lightning AI, Hugging Face accelerate) but much, much less…

FTA "With over two million users, Keras has become a cornerstone of AI development, streamlining complex workflows and democratizing access to cutting-edge technology. It powers numerous applications at Google and across the world, from the Waymo autonomous cars, to your daily YouTube, Netflix, and Spotify recommendations."