Photo: Tesla via Youtube
Tesla’s Elon Musk keeps promising a functional Full Self-Driving for the past years, but the automated driving system remains reluctant to fulfill Musk’s expectations. His latest estimates were for the FSD to be available in the U.S. by the end of the year, but a new development dealt a blow to Tesla’s plans.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automated driving are a big part of what Elon Musk names “Master Plan Part 3” so it makes sense that Tesla bets its future on these technologies. Even though crucial, both of them are put on hold at the moment after Andrej Karpathy, the person overseeing Tesla’s AI, announced a four-month sabbatical.
Elon Musk made the announcement with a “BTW” Twitter reply to a question regarding Canadian FSD deployment, which showed how uneasy it is for him to comprehend the situation. Less than three hours later, Karpathy took to Twitter to voice his excitement while explaining the situation.
“Taking some time off to rest and travel after almost 5 years at Tesla. Especially excited to get focused time to re-sharpen my technical edge and train some neural nets! Though I already miss all the robots and GPU/Dojo clusters and looking forward to having them at my fingertips again,” wrote Karpathy on Twitter.
This looks like a blow to Tesla’s efforts to crack full self-driving this year. Although Tesla has assembled a strong AI team, Karpathy is instrumental in Tesla cracking full self-driving. A four-month sabbatical might look like a short delay in Tesla’s plans, but both investors and fans are worried. It would not be the first time a Tesla executive disappeared after taking some time off.
Doug Field, Tesla’s former senior VP of engineering, left in 2018 supposedly “to recharge and spend time with his family.” A few months later, it was revealed Field would not return, as he got back to Apple. Three years later, Field was named Ford’s chief advanced technology and embedded systems officer.
Elon Musk made the announcement with a “BTW” Twitter reply to a question regarding Canadian FSD deployment, which showed how uneasy it is for him to comprehend the situation. Less than three hours later, Karpathy took to Twitter to voice his excitement while explaining the situation.
“Taking some time off to rest and travel after almost 5 years at Tesla. Especially excited to get focused time to re-sharpen my technical edge and train some neural nets! Though I already miss all the robots and GPU/Dojo clusters and looking forward to having them at my fingertips again,” wrote Karpathy on Twitter.
This looks like a blow to Tesla’s efforts to crack full self-driving this year. Although Tesla has assembled a strong AI team, Karpathy is instrumental in Tesla cracking full self-driving. A four-month sabbatical might look like a short delay in Tesla’s plans, but both investors and fans are worried. It would not be the first time a Tesla executive disappeared after taking some time off.
Doug Field, Tesla’s former senior VP of engineering, left in 2018 supposedly “to recharge and spend time with his family.” A few months later, it was revealed Field would not return, as he got back to Apple. Three years later, Field was named Ford’s chief advanced technology and embedded systems officer.
Taking some time off to rest&travel after almost 5 years at Tesla. Esp excited to get focused time to re-sharpen my technical edge and train some neural nets! Though I already miss all the robots and GPU/Dojo clusters and looking forward to having them at my fingertips again ?????? https://t.co/R2Yidw9Yma
— Andrej Karpathy (@karpathy) March 27, 2022
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