
Tesla hires Andrej Karpathy - janober
https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/20/tesla-hires-deep-learning-expert-andrej-karpathy-to-lead-autopilot-vision
======
Animats
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 with cameras
alone. Deep learning is useful, but it's not magic, and it's not strong AI. No
wonder their head of automatic driving quit. Karpathy may bail in a few
months, once he realizes he's joined a death march.

If anything, Tesla should have learned by now that you don't want to need to
recognize objects to avoid them. The Mobileye system works that way, being
very focused on identifying moving cars, pedestrians, and bicycles. It's led
to at least four high speed crashes with stationary objects it didn't identify
as obstacles. This is pathetic. We had avoidance of big stationary objects
working in the DARPA Grand Challenge back in 2005.

With a good LIDAR, you get a point cloud. This tells you where there's
something. Maybe you can identify some of the "somethings", but if there's an
unidentified object out there, you know it's there. The planner can plot a
course that stays on the road surface and doesn't hit anything. Object
recognition is mostly for identifying other road users and trying to predict
their behavior.

Compare Chris Urmson's talk and videos at SXSW 2016 [1] with Tesla's demo
videos from last month.[2] Notice how aware the Google/Waymo vehicle is of
what other road users are doing, and how it has a comprehensive overview of
the situation. See Urmson show how it handled encountering unusual situations
such as someone in a powered wheelchair chasing a duck with a broom. Note
Urmson's detailed analysis of how a Google car scraped the side of a bus at
2MPH while maneuvering around sandbags placed in the parking lane.

Now watch Tesla's sped-up video, slowed down to normal speed. (1/4 speed is
about right for viewing.) Tesla wouldn't even detect small sandbags; they
don't even see traffic cones. Note how few roadside objects they mark. If it's
outside the lines, they just don't care. There's not enough info to take
evasive action in an emergency. Or even avoid a pothole.

Prediction: 2020 will be the year the big players have self-driving. It will
use LIDAR, cameras, and radars. Continental will have a good low-cost LIDAR
using the technology from Advanced Scientific Concepts at an affordable price
point.

Tesla will try to ship a self-driving system before that while trying to avoid
financial responsibility for crashes. People will die because of this.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uj-
rK8V-rik](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uj-rK8V-rik) [2]
[https://player.vimeo.com/video/192179727](https://player.vimeo.com/video/192179727)

~~~
_ph_
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.

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

~~~
RealityVoid
I wonder if I want to put my money betting on this how should I proceed?

~~~
bitJericho
Invest in the trucking industry?

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timemachiner
Since it seems to be a thing to report that X person specializing in machine
learning has moved from Y company to Z, it makes me wonder if other areas of
computer science is seen as relevant by the general public.

One rarely hears Dr. John Doe from Florida State University (or insert non-
Standford university here) in Distributed systems has moved from Microsoft
Research to NetApp. These are arbitrary names. The point is you rarely hear
about people from other areas of CS outside of machine learning/universities
outside of Stanford moving from one company to another. The field of CS is
vast and there are multitude of practical and theoretical problems outside of
machine learning that are worth looking into (ones that aren't currently
considered hip or cool by the public).

~~~
sidlls
This same thing is an issue in many scientific disciplines. How many people
can even name an area of physics research that isn't particle physics or
general relativity, for example?

~~~
sjg007
Biomedical

~~~
dwighttk
biomedical physics?

~~~
nkozyra
Next big thing. Get in on the ground floor

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ccorda
Seems to be taking Chris Lattner's place:

[https://twitter.com/clattner_llvm/status/877341760812232704](https://twitter.com/clattner_llvm/status/877341760812232704)

~~~
pscsbs
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 warrant such a public separation?

[0] [https://electrek.co/2017/06/20/tesla-autopilot-chris-
lattner...](https://electrek.co/2017/06/20/tesla-autopilot-chris-lattner-
software-vision/)

~~~
geodel
Don't people like it here when a company does not indulge in pc bullshit. I
think Tesla statement is to the point.

~~~
psadri
You have to be careful how you let people go if you want to attract good
talent. There is always a chance of a misfit, and the right thing to do is to
part ways as soon either party realizes it, but you want to do this in a way
that is not unnecessarily damaging to either party's reputation. Otherwise,
good people with a reputation may think twice about working with you.

~~~
alexashka
Reputation is for B players. Chris Lattner can go work for any company in the
world that can afford him.

A players don't look at company's reputation, they look at things that
actually matter.

~~~
psadri
You are contradicting yourself. Being an A player is your reputation. No one
is going to hire your into a senior level role without you first having a good
reputation.

~~~
alexashka
A players don't worry about getting hired into senior level roles.

They don't worry about their reputation either.

If you worry about any of that, you're not an A player :)

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nojvek
I follow Karpathy on Twitter and really enjoy his blog. I do fear that his
impact in Tesla could be less than his impact at openai. Openai had some
fundamentally great research and ideas.

I wish him that best though. Hopefully some of Tesla algorithms will be open
source someday and those of us who can't afford a Tesla will be able to use it
as well.

~~~
awqrre
Tesla: "All Our Patent Are Belong To You"[0]

0:[https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-
you](https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-you)

~~~
aerovistae
Not relevant. The software may not be patented but also just not published.
You would have to reverse engineer it to get at the algorithms, and the car is
surely heavily encrypted.

It's like Musk said with SpaceX: publishing patents is just like putting out a
recipe book for China.

~~~
awqrre
it's also a recipe for future generations... or a backup if you will...

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komaromy
Interesting, to move from an Elon-Musk-chaired non-profit to an Elon-Musk-
owned for-profit.

~~~
unityByFreedom
Open AI was always a pipeline for Musk. Use other people's donations to
attract and identify the talent, then move them under his payroll.

I guess that's a win win for the employees and for Musk. Not sure how many
other supporters Open AI has, though I doubt that's what they had in mind when
they donated to support that effort.

~~~
nsturis
It's not like Musk doesn't donate to OpenAI himself..

~~~
unityByFreedom
That he spends money to find talent for his own company isn't so surprising.
He's just done it in a new, slightly abstract way

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cityhall
Anyone have any insight into what the top ML people are being paid right now?

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pscsbs
The equity packages tend to be in the tens of millions for a 4-year vest.

Source: I am a manager who has given offers to top-tier ML experts.

~~~
foresight
If you are a hiring manager for top-tier ML experts, why would you be trying
to inflate market value with outrageous claims?

~~~
pscsbs
I guarantee you that my comments here will not influence the market rate for
top-tier ML experts.

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terrble
Karpathy. Car pathy.

* I hate myself for this.

~~~
mikeash
You may enjoy (or hate) Wikipedia's article on aptronyms:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aptronym](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aptronym)

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nodesocket
Andrej paired with chip guru Jim Keller [1] (vice president of autopilot
hardware engineering) should be an amazing combo.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Keller_(engineer)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Keller_\(engineer\))

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foobarqux
I think he'll regret accepting the position. Impossible deadlines are going to
force him out in under 12 months.

~~~
kilroy123
As much as I want to see Tesla and Elon Musk succeed, I wouldn't work for one
of this companies. So I agree.

~~~
victor9000
Likewise. As notorious as Amazon became for it's negative work/life balance,
it seems like every Musk-run company is at least twice as bad. People
regularly throw out 80hr/week numbers when discussing life at SpaceX. Thanks,
but no thanks.

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sjg007
So where does this leave openAi?

~~~
ganfortran
OpenAI is a weird animal. Their research seems generally less impactful than
rest of the top tier labs out there. But they do have great people on the
team. Is it because their engineering infrastructure is subpar?

~~~
skynode
Depends on how you see it though; the most impactful stuff is not necessarily
the most reported in the media. As always, the media lags these things and so
the public don't get to see shit coming.

~~~
ganfortran
I am pretty catching up-to-date with this field, and I didn't really get my
DL(AI though it is pointless buzzword) news from media.

As far as I can remember, most important research from OpenAI is InfoGAN.
Others feel somewhat below outstanding. Their open source record on the other
hand is pretty solid, gym/universe and various implementations and testing of
existing models does live up to the openness in their name.

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colmvp
This is great to hear. Andrej has contributed a lot to DL students worldwide,
what with his lectures online and his writeups, that I'm glad he's continuing
his upward trajectory. A very inspiring person.

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wideem
Haven't thought that Andrej is such a big star in tech and deep learning
communities. Which him all the best, his deep learning course was amazing

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smithsmith
How old is Andrej Karpathy ? Unable to find on google.

~~~
tnecniv
From his website, he entered his BSc in 2005, suggesting he'd be about 30.

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manishmarahatta
so it's done for other car industries :/

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xyzzy4
If A.I. can't fold my laundry, I wouldn't trust it with my car.

~~~
jfoster
Driving a car is currently specialised, as is folding laundry. The opportunity
for autonomous vehicles is clear; you can start with replacing the cost of
paying every person around the world who drives for a living with profit
equivalent to their income. (likely at somewhat less than 100% efficiency, but
who cares because of the massive scale?)

The next bit would be converting private trips into automated rides; replacing
car ownership. The unit profits will decrease as part of this effort, but the
opportunity is again huge.

How will you monetise laundry folding automation? At best you can replace just
some of the people at all the commercial laundries and turn that into profit,
but many laundries may hire one person who does everything. For home use you
could sell a machine, but how much would you need to charge for it for that to
equal recurring revenue from autonomous vehicles and how much are people
willing to pay for a laundry robot? (even robotic vacuums are still quite
niche despite probably being more convenient and costing less than LaundryBot)

~~~
ams6110
> replacing the cost of paying every person around the world who drives for a
> living with profit equivalent to their income

That's not how it works, because your competitors will undercut you. Then you
will undercut them, and continue the race to the bottom until the natural
price is reached.

~~~
jfoster
The efficiency will certainly be a lot less than 100%, and it does seem likely
that at least two companies might bring the tech to market within a couple of
years of each other. I think whatever the starting price point is, there will
probably be so much of a demand/supply gap that the initial price point will
hold for a number of years.

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du_bing
Wonderful news!

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throw2bit
What is so hackerynews about this ? Hackernews is turning facebooky with low
quality content.

