Elon Musk-owned electric car manufacturer Tesla has recruited Andrej Karpathy, a known deep learning and computer vision expert, to help further improve the role of Autopilot in the company’s new cars.
Prior to this offer from Tesla, Karpathy was holding a key position as a researcher at OpenAI, a non-profit backed by Musk known for its valuable research in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). Karpathy brings along a rich and extensive background in the field of AI technologies. He has also completed a Ph.D. in computer vision at the Stanford University.
Karpathy is known for his dissertation work centered around developing a sophisticated system comprising a neural network that could detect and identify multiple discrete and specific objects within an image and then categorize them using natural language before reporting back to the user. The dissertation also aims to create a system that operates in reverse, i.e. finding a specific object in an image based on the user-input describing that object.
The research scientist has also served at Google’s DeepMind earlier in his career and attended both the University of Toronto and the University of British Columbia before that. With all these experience taken into account, it is expected that Karpathy would eventually prove himself as a big asset to Tesla by helping improve the Autopilot feature in the company’s self-driving cars. His expertise will come particularly handy in the improvement of Tesla Vision, the computer vision system that makes self-driving possible.
In his new role as the Director of Tesla’s AI and Autopilot Vision, Karpathy will report directly to Elon Musk. Although, he is also expected to coordinate with other important faces in the company such as Jim Keller who had previously served as the head of Tesla’s Autopilot hardware division. Keller currently oversees both software and hardware units for the car manufacturer’s automated driver assistance features.
[Via]