Elon Musk Extends Public Invitation to Tesla’s Former AI Chief Andrej Karpathy
Elon Musk recently extended a public invitation to Tesla’s former AI chief, Andrej Karpathy, to reunite with him. The invitation came after Karpathy posted a tweet praising the newly opened Tesla Diner in Los Angeles. In his tweet, Karpathy described the Tesla Diner as a futuristic exhibit, combining a Supercharger station with a diner and drive-in movie theater. Musk quote-posted Karpathy’s tweet with a heartfelt message, calling him his “long lost brother” and expressing a desire to work together again.
Karpathy, who led Tesla’s Autopilot team during a critical period in the company’s self-driving development, departed from the company in July 2022 after five years. He played a key role in scaling Tesla’s AI efforts to power Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology. However, Karpathy cited a shift in his role towards more corporate executive responsibilities as the reason for his departure, prompting him to focus on technical work.
Prior to joining Tesla, Karpathy was a founding member of OpenAI and is well-known for his expertise in deep learning, computer vision, and large-scale model training. If Karpathy were to accept Musk’s invitation, he would have the opportunity to work on high-stakes AI projects at Tesla, including the piloting of unsupervised FSD in Austin and the development of the Optimus humanoid robot for internal use.
With Musk’s new AI venture, xAI, aiming for the advancement of artificial general intelligence (AGI), Karpathy’s return could potentially supercharge not only Tesla’s AI initiatives but also other projects across Musk’s companies. Musk’s current focus on AI technologies underscores the significance of Karpathy’s potential return and the impact it could have on shaping the future of AI development.
Overall, Musk’s invitation to Karpathy signifies the value of their past collaboration and the potential for future innovation in the field of artificial intelligence. As Tesla continues to push the boundaries of autonomous driving and AI technology, Karpathy’s expertise and experience could prove invaluable in driving these advancements forward.