I'm always taken aback by this fascination and heroification with John Carmack (or similar figures) on HN. I love Doom and Quake too, but that doesn't qualify him any more than any other random senior engineer to work on something totally different.
From his interviews it looks like he understands little about the technical details of ML, or about as much as anyone can learn in a few months, and is just banking on PR based on his games and name.
I put him into the same category as Elon Musk, who also understand nothing about technical details of AI, but was still able to hire a world class team at OpenAI. His name and fame counts for something in terms of recruiting and joining his venture may be a good bet because of that, but he's not a person whose opinion on the subject matter I would take seriously in the same way I'd take a researcher seriously.
I got obsessed with his ideas after reading the Quake 3 source code. So many novel ideas, flawlessly executed, highly optimized, yet easy to understand and easy to modify and debug.
My personal impression is that John Carmack has the ability to organize concepts in a way that few people can. So even if he's pretty clueless about the topic now, I would expect him to reduce some maths papers to their essence in a way that nobody else did.
I mean also for Oculus, reprojection in a pixel shader seems like an obvious and easy solution in hindsight. But nobody had tried that before he did. Plenty of people (myself included) knew the math. But we all missed its application to the issue at hand.
He’s been going on about AI for at least a couple of years now: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21530860 It’s certainly possible that he will have a novel idea, but I haven’t seen anything come out of it yet.
I’m sure Carmack’s mathematical ability exceeds that of the average game developer (and certainly my own), but the AI field isn’t short of math whizzes.
Most math wizzes only learn to apply known methods, they don't invent new methods. The AI fields isn't full of people who are creative enough to invent new math methods instead of just applying methods they learned in school.
Most mathematicians aren't creative enough to invent new math methods either, they mostly just apply things they learned in school to find new results. Universities aren't good at finding nor nurturing creative individuals.
There are plenty of new scientific results that in both Math and Machine Learning that are essentially 6 months/a few years/a few decades of hard work away from discovery.
As a professor once told me: IF you're lucky, after 10 years in academia, you get to be creative and come up with 4-5 ideas once every 5 years or so (when coming up with the suggested list of research for new phd students to do). Then you get to be devastated when no-one picks up any of your more creative ideas, and everyone picks the 10 non-creative ideas on the list because they don't want to risk their phd.
Yeah, so a person like Carmack who takes the risk and spent his career doing technically creative things could maybe make a difference. Probably not, but as long as creativity is so de-incentivized we will never have too many creative individuals around.
Even if those ideas are death ends its really important for the rest of the community to know at least some one has put some efforts and discovered several death branches in that creative direction.
Is that just your gut feeling, as in typical "bright people doing amazing things, surely they would succeed doing x" (which ultimately means nothing, that's just PR speak), or are you saying that based on your own understanding of advanced mathematics and mathematical research from which you are assessing the mathematical work those people you talk about do?
I assume Carmack can pick up a lot about a new technical topic in a few years, similarly to how Bill Gates could learn a lot about vaccines and healthcare in a few years. "Hi, I'm (rich and nerd famous person) calling for (expert in field)." Probably spending most of that time being tutored by that experts PhD students.
I'm sure he can, but has Bill gates done actual groundbreaking research into vaccines, or just made intelligent decisions about what kind of research to fund? I think the latter.
Sure, I guess. My point is that Bill Gates is going something quite different from John Carmack (funding research outside his area of expertise, rather than doing the research himself), so that the comparison is not very illuminating.
I'm just saying there's been no visible indication of progress. You're obviously free to believe that something will come of it over a longer time period. It also seems that we can add at least another year based on this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21531255
I beg to differ. It's unbiased people like Carmack who tend to think out of the box. I don't think we can state that he did invent the FPS genre, but at the very least he was one of the initial catalysts.
People who work in the field for a long time tend to have a certain bias towards a solution. Often these people are stuck in a local maxima. Outsiders can offer a new perspective that results in a breakthrough, usually by starting from first principles or looking at different side-tracks that used to lead to a dead end.
A great example is Musk's SpaceX: when he noticed how much he had to pay for a rocket engine, he went back to first principles and said: "I'll just build it myself". Combine that with the insight that a rocket should be able to land properly to make re-use a valid option, and it disrupts a whole field.
And once someone did it, others know it's possible and start achieving it as well.
Sometimes ignorance is bliss. Just think about George "Good Will Hunting" Dantzig [1] with the (in)famous "I assumed these were homework assignments, not unsolved math problems" [1] or Eliud Kipchoge running a marathon in under 2 hours.
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
>Sometimes ignorance is bliss. Just think about George "Good Will Hunting" Dantzig [1] with the (in)famous "I assumed these were homework assignments, not unsolved math problems" [1] or Eliud Kipchoge running a marathon in under 2 hours.
A pretty infamous example is Citizen Kane. Welles knew very little of traditional cinematography techniques by the time he got to the production of the movie, so his planned shots more or less fit his artistic vision rather than industry standards. Gregg Toland, his director of cinematography, was at that point a 12 year veteran of the industry and hated the bland factory-line output of movie composition of the period.
Welles more or less told Toland what he wanted to shoot and how, and Toland did his best to fit that artistic image. Welles was completely clueless that Toland was using innovate and never before seen techniques to film his shots, and Toland kept quiet because he was allowed to go wild with his vision :)
I am not a big fan of idolizing someone, but Carmack is so technically good, and explains himself so well, why not get inspiration from him? I read Masters of Doom and genuinely enjoyed it.
Let's say I strongly disagree on many levels in the comparison with the other person you mention. Just to mention two, the humbleness that Carmack shows, and how well he explains himself are key differentiators for me.
Regarding the appeal to authority in AI knowledge, Carmack has shown again and again he can deliver software (AI is software after all), and we are in a forum with hacker in the name.
I a summary, not my hero, but when he says something I will listen. Maybe I learn something.
Big organizations ruled by money and career-driven people often run into very expensive dead ends without noticing for years (see the last AI winter, there was just too much hype, which then involved too much money being thrown around, which then lead to the usual organizational cruft).
I would also be very concerned about any field in technology, if an intelligent person cannot make meaningful contributions after a few months or years, that would probably mean the whole field is already deep into diminishing returns and needs to be 'unstuck'.
I dislike the ways in which HN submitters post every little twitter thread wrote by Carmack, but this article has some value in presenting a little more in depth perspective on how he is thinking about the AI problem.
Carmack has already entered two spaces of computer technology that he revolutionized: 3D gaming and VR. I trust that he's able to have a similar impact in AI, even if it's through failing at the problem in different ways than relying on ML.
The jury is still out on Oculus revolutionising VR or not. Technologically, Oculus has become more like Google's Daydream than anything else - inside out tracking of the device and controllers, use of a cellphone computational power for standalone operation, etc...
The original technologies that were introduced have now been abandoned by Oculus, on Carmack's advice, except for implementation details that haven't been hugely impactful, unlike with 3D gaming.
Too bad people who make progress don't ask for permission to try new things and they probably don't even care what anyone thinks. They are not limited by decades of dogma and rules of the game that experts would take for granted you can't break. If they fail, then well, no problem, at least they tried. If they succeed, then it's a win for all.
Changing fields is though for everyone, no matter how talented you are. There is a great chance he will fail. On the other hand, he meets all requirements that are needed to succeed.
Carmack has proven his extraordinary technical skills. I recommend following his Twitter. Sometimes he posts non-obvious technical stuff. I read some interviews and to me, he doesn't seem to be a person who is driven by gaining popularity.
I think this news is very optimistic, as yet another intelligent, talented and hard-working person is joining the field. Moreover, he is a household name, which may lead to benefits like popularization of the topic, gaining investors attention and so on.
I fully understand (and share) your aversion to personality cults. And it's definitely possible that there exists some actual personality cult/fandom around Carmack.
BUT - I strongly believe, that he has earned quite some respect during his career.
And - importantly in this case - he is well known for NOT blowing things out of proportion, indulge in wishful thinking, hyping up unrealistic expectations or jumping to premature conclusions. He usually knows what he's talking about.
This is not people blindly believing everything he says - but more a case of his statements holding up really well under critical inspection most of the time.
> I love Doom and Quake too, but that doesn't qualify him any more than any other random senior engineer to work on something totally different
This means that people should glorify random unknown senior engineers they don't know about instead being fascinated by the person whose work is available and who created amazing things for past 3 decades?
> From his interviews it looks like he understands little about the technical details of ML
That's how everyone start, they understand a little. We have a person here who dealt with complex algorithms in difficult to master language for 30+ years. It hints at "this person has the intellectual power to grasp AI fast".
> I put him into the same category as Elon Musk
This is like comparing an Olympic winner with random person from the streets, saying their athletic ability is about the same.
Fascination and heroification with Carmack comes with a reason, people who do that are closely familiar with his work - not surface level like "He made Doom and Quake". You sound very jealous.
Banking? Frankly if he was after money there would easier way.
He isn't a cook and he's doing a moonshot towards AGI: I say 'good luck!'
That doesn't mean that I believe that his '60% change of AGI by 2030' isn't wildly overoptimistic, but then again those who take a shot at AGI are overoptimists..
I've never got the impression that he's banking on his reputation getting him anywhere. He "made it" long ago and is in a position to just pursue his passions. I think he broadcasts his interests and progress because others like following along, and not because he's wanting even more attention or success.
> I'm always taken aback by this fascination and heroification with John Carmack (or similar figures) on HN. I love Doom and Quake too, but that doesn't qualify him any more than any other random senior engineer to work on something totally different.
According to Sriram Krishnan, John Carmack was at Facebook's highest engineering level and achieved the top possible rating of "redefines expectations" for his level three years in a row. They had to create a new tier for him. Nobody else has ever reached that level. He replaced a "hundred person team" and maybe was better than that team.
I have no inside insight to the matter, but this seems like something beyond a "random senior engineer".
According to Sriram Krishnan, John Carmack was at
> I'm always taken aback by this fascination and heroification with John Carmack (or similar figures) on HN. I love Doom and Quake too, but that doesn't qualify him any more than any other random senior engineer to work on something totally different.
Facebook's highest engineering level and achieved the top possible rating of "redefines expectations" for his level three years in a row. They had to create a new tier for him. Nobody else has ever reached that level. He replaced a "hundred person team" and maybe was better than that team.
I have no inside insight to the matter, but this seems like something beyond a "random senior engineer".
I agree with your point in general within fields that are a proven success, but as discussed many times on HN, there's no reason to believe current ML/"AI" approaches have much to do with AGI, so it's not obvious what would be gained by him or anybody else investing years in barking up the same barren research tree.
It even makes it clear in the title he's seeking a "different path".
In his favour he's a proven success in different fields; personally I think he's too old to come up with the new ideas needed - that's a young person's game.
But perhaps he can do it as a team lead - and it won't be by following the failed-over-decades path of our current academic gatekeepers.
i would never put these two people in the same box. except the box simply states: stinking rich.
i dont know either personally, but where elon demonstrates being full of shit, carmack would stfu and learn about it before talking. at least thats my impression of them
There isn’t even that much to learn about AI at this stage. Gradient descent and a lot of model variations. I really doubt carmack hasn’t been able to get deep knowledge of this, most smart curious undergraduates are already up to date with it.
ML and AI is not a solved thing. Current "deep" algorithm, whose technical details everyone is striving to master, is quite possible not the one that will lead us to the AGI.
> I put him into the same category as Elon Musk, who also understand nothing about technical details of AI, but was still able to hire a world class team at OpenAI.
I don't believe he had anything to do with hiring at openAI nor that he is anything more there than an investor/donor as others are.
Perhaps not directly, but from the very start OpenAI was considered "Elon's AI company" and people wanted to work there because they wanted to work with Elon. That had a huge effect on what kind of talent OpenAI was able to hire.
Yes, I'm aware that Ilya had much more day-to-day impact, but if you're part of the ML research community and have worked with Ilya, or heard rumors of working with Ilya, that may have had more of a negative effect...
From his interviews it looks like he understands little about the technical details of ML, or about as much as anyone can learn in a few months, and is just banking on PR based on his games and name.
I put him into the same category as Elon Musk, who also understand nothing about technical details of AI, but was still able to hire a world class team at OpenAI. His name and fame counts for something in terms of recruiting and joining his venture may be a good bet because of that, but he's not a person whose opinion on the subject matter I would take seriously in the same way I'd take a researcher seriously.