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AI Genius Andrej Karpathy Leaves Tesla for Good, It's a Big Loss for the Autopilot Team

Andrej Karpathy, the chief of AI and computer vision at Tesla, confirmed what everyone suspected at the beginning of his sabbatical four months ago. Karpathy announced on Twitter that he is leaving Tesla for good, although he claims he has no concrete plans.
AI genius Andrej Karpathy leaves Tesla for good 6 photos
Photo: Tesla via Youtube
Tesla FSD is on hold as AI chief takes a four-month sabbaticalTesla FSD is on hold as AI chief takes a four-month sabbaticalTesla FSD is on hold as AI chief takes a four-month sabbaticalTesla FSD is on hold as AI chief takes a four-month sabbaticalTesla FSD is on hold as AI chief takes a four-month sabbatical
Karpathy joined Tesla more than five years ago and soon became the lead figure in Tesla’s FSD and artificial intelligence efforts. He also gained prominence as one of the few people at Tesla besides Elon Musk to get on stage during presentations. When he announced taking a sabbatical in March, many people feared he would use this time to find another job. It has happened before, and now Karpathy just confirmed the rumors.

The former chief of AI at Tesla says he has no plan for what to do next. According to his message, he would use the time off to “revisit his long-term passions around technical work in AI, open source and education.”

Karpathy’s departure is a significant loss for Tesla and its AI program, including Full Self-Driving development. Nevertheless, as Karpathy admits, the Autopilot team has many talented engineers, and his leaving should not be as catastrophic as some believe. The Autopilot team was led by Ashok Elluswami before Andrej Karpathy came on board, and this did not change while the latter led the AI team at Tesla. Elluswami is also among those rumored to fill in Karpathy’s role.

In the meantime, Elon Musk did not appear in shock at Karpathy’s departure. This indicates the two discussed this long ago, probably even before Andrej took the “four-month sabbatical.” According to rumors, Tesla’s CEO even attended a goodbye barbecue in Palo Alto for Karpathy. His jet’s moves tracking bot @ElonJet seems to confirm this.

Even without Karpathy, FSDS efforts keep going. Elon Musk confirmed version 10.13 will enter internal beta on Friday, with an expected broader roll-out next week. The update should improve complex unprotected left turn maneuvers, among other things. The much-hyped FSD V11 has reduced importance since many new features were already incorporated into the 10.x releases.

“Beta V11 hopefully end of next month, which just amounts to incorporating highway,” wrote Musk in a Twitter reply. “Importance of ‘v11’ has been reduced by all the 10.x releases. We’re already mostly at v11.”

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About the author: Cristian Agatie
Cristian Agatie profile photo

After his childhood dream of becoming a "tractor operator" didn't pan out, Cristian turned to journalism, first in print and later moving to online media. His top interests are electric vehicles and new energy solutions.
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