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There was no reason to waste money for this. You don't want to focus on two incredibly resource-intense and error-prone processes in the same company (Automotiv

There was no reason to waste money for this. You don't want to focus on two incredibly resource-intense and error-prone processes in the same company (Automotive, Semiconductor). This is a hype project simply created to pump up the stock price.

AlotOfReading 4y ago
While I agree that most custom silicon is a bit silly (and the costs dramatically underestimated), it's worth noting that most of the serious companies in the AV space have some some amount of custom silicon for ML either in the works or already in production. Waymo is using TPUs for example and Cruise has its own chips as well. It's the cool thing to do in SV lately. Doesn't help that Nvidia is such a toxic partner that the prospect of not working with them makes custom silicon seem almost reasonable.
kjksf 4y ago
There's a legion of people convinced of their superior intellect with "helpful" advice about what Musk / Tesla / SpaceX should or should no do. After first AI day Tesla stock dropped significantly. Wall Street doesn't understand Tesla as anything else but a car company and won't understand AI until it start producing billions in revenues. It's exceedingly poor stock pump. They've been working on Dojo for almost 7 years. They kept it secret for the first 5. Kind of contradicts the "stock pump" memes. They start talking about it now because those efforts are very advanced and they want to hire more people.
- stephencanon 4y ago
  It has not really been a secret, they just haven’t been talking about details much. It was pretty clear to anyone who works in related areas what they were up to.
panick21_ 4y ago
Its so hilarious when people think everything Tesla does is some 4D chess about stock price, when in reality Musk really doesn't care about stock price at all. He literally thinks multiple years ahead, and doesn't change that strategy because some short term head winds. > two incredibly resource-intense and error-prone processes in the same company (Automotive, Semiconductor). If you think making these chips is excessive, you don't know Tesla. Tesla is the most vertically integrated car company in the world (maybe BYD compares). Compared to literally designing not only their own batteries cells, but their own battery chemistries plus their own battery materials process AND their own fully up battery manufacturing factories. They started doing this a decade ago and only this year the first cars rolled of the line and being sold to costumers. That is years and years of investment, planning and internal capacity building. In 2017 people were laughing at them for attempting to do all their own manufactriong. Now they have industry dominating automotive margin. They literally have their own materials team that makes their own aluminum for casting and have co-developed production machines that are the size of a whole house. This is now slowly being copied by other manufactures. They also make their own glass, seats and a whole host of other things that most car companies don't make. Doing these things in-house cost billions and billions in capx. Also, Dojo is not the only chip they make, they have other chips that are already being sold in their cars by the millions every year. Dojo is a pittance of investment compared to that and a fraction of the total investment into the overall self-driving stack. Just because you don't agree with the overall strategy (assuming from your comment) doesn't mean that they many, many billions Tesla spends isn't real, or its all some sort of stock price play. So, if you think Dojo is about stock price, I don't know what to tell you, its just wrong.
- keepquestioning 4y ago
  - panick21_ 4y ago
    - hello639 4y ago
- dagmx 4y ago
  Your first point is provably false because Musk thinks about stock price often, and posts on his Twitter accordingly. However I do agree that Dojo isn’t about the stock price though I’m sure it’s about reducing their bottom line costs long term.
  - fastball 4y ago
    I guess they meant to say he doesn't prioritize the stock price going up.
- mgoetzke 4y ago
  So many people here seem to be convinced that since NVidia is the leader in this tech all other attempts of building up something comparable is a loosing proposition, shouldn't be even attempted, it senseless, and everybody should just bow to them and buy from them. Weird. I though competition, even when the Leader is far ahead is a good thing and up to the Investors. No idea whether they can make it work, it is really hard, especially adjusting their tools, but they have written most tools themselves, so adjusting should be possible. Making those tools available to outsiders one day ? can happen, doesn't have to.
  - sinenomine 4y ago
    > So many people here seem to be convinced that since NVidia is the leader in this tech all other attempts of building up something comparable is a loosing proposition A non-issue if you understand the design space of TPU-like AI accelerators. The understanding shouldn't even be necessary because the major players (Google, now Amazon) already build their TPUs and have been for years. Nvidia tax is too much.
mgrund 4y ago
Given Musks public statements on goals and strategies, I think you should view it more holistically. With Musk, everything is a step towards the end goal(s), like colonizing Mars (which might even be the only goal since it ties everything together; it’s much easier to send humanoids to prepare for colonization and it’s not like HCI seems at all a priority unlike many other AI efforts). My guess is that with Tesla, Musk aims to create AGI in a way he can control (as you may recall, he has previously talked about fears of the tech and control is a natural strategy to handle this). The cars are just the step that enables the next, so he basically just invests in the future over short term gains, which is a very reasonable business decision. Custom silicon is likely unavoidable if you want to lead the AGI field, so he would just be investing in the next step of the plan. Tesla Bot is a good indicator of this direction.
- tsimionescu 4y ago
  > Tesla Bot is a good indicator of this direction. Tesla Bot was the human in a bot costume dancing on stage [0], right? If so, then yes, this is quite a good indicator of the seriousness of this direction. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUP6Z5voiS8&t=1m2s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUP6Z5voiS8&t=1m2s
  - relativ575 4y ago
    Urgh, they explicitly mentioned that it was a real human in the same presentation. Your obsession with bashing Tesla is unhealthy. Pick a valid criticism.
    - tsimionescu 4y ago
      Yes, I know that wasn't a lie, just a very corny joke. Did we ever get anything more substantive about Tesla Bot though?

AlotOfReading 4y ago

While I agree that most custom silicon is a bit silly (and the costs dramatically underestimated), it's worth noting that most of the serious companies in the AV space have some some amount of custom silicon for ML either in the works or already in production. Waymo is using TPUs for example and Cruise has its own chips as well. It's the cool thing to do in SV lately. Doesn't help that Nvidia is such a toxic partner that the prospect of not working with them makes custom silicon seem almost reasonable.

kjksf 4y ago

There's a legion of people convinced of their superior intellect with "helpful" advice about what Musk / Tesla / SpaceX should or should no do. After first AI day Tesla stock dropped significantly. Wall Street doesn't understand Tesla as anything else but a car company and won't understand AI until it start producing billions in revenues. It's exceedingly poor stock pump. They've been working on Dojo for almost 7 years. They kept it secret for the first 5. Kind of contradicts the "stock pump" memes. They start talking about it now because those efforts are very advanced and they want to hire more people.

stephencanon 4y ago
It has not really been a secret, they just haven’t been talking about details much. It was pretty clear to anyone who works in related areas what they were up to.

panick21_ 4y ago

Its so hilarious when people think everything Tesla does is some 4D chess about stock price, when in reality Musk really doesn't care about stock price at all. He literally thinks multiple years ahead, and doesn't change that strategy because some short term head winds. > two incredibly resource-intense and error-prone processes in the same company (Automotive, Semiconductor). If you think making these chips is excessive, you don't know Tesla. Tesla is the most vertically integrated car company in the world (maybe BYD compares). Compared to literally designing not only their own batteries cells, but their own battery chemistries plus their own battery materials process AND their own fully up battery manufacturing factories. They started doing this a decade ago and only this year the first cars rolled of the line and being sold to costumers. That is years and years of investment, planning and internal capacity building. In 2017 people were laughing at them for attempting to do all their own manufactriong. Now they have industry dominating automotive margin. They literally have their own materials team that makes their own aluminum for casting and have co-developed production machines that are the size of a whole house. This is now slowly being copied by other manufactures. They also make their own glass, seats and a whole host of other things that most car companies don't make. Doing these things in-house cost billions and billions in capx. Also, Dojo is not the only chip they make, they have other chips that are already being sold in their cars by the millions every year. Dojo is a pittance of investment compared to that and a fraction of the total investment into the overall self-driving stack. Just because you don't agree with the overall strategy (assuming from your comment) doesn't mean that they many, many billions Tesla spends isn't real, or its all some sort of stock price play. So, if you think Dojo is about stock price, I don't know what to tell you, its just wrong.

keepquestioning 4y ago
- panick21_ 4y ago
  - hello639 4y ago
dagmx 4y ago
Your first point is provably false because Musk thinks about stock price often, and posts on his Twitter accordingly. However I do agree that Dojo isn’t about the stock price though I’m sure it’s about reducing their bottom line costs long term.
- fastball 4y ago
  I guess they meant to say he doesn't prioritize the stock price going up.
mgoetzke 4y ago
So many people here seem to be convinced that since NVidia is the leader in this tech all other attempts of building up something comparable is a loosing proposition, shouldn't be even attempted, it senseless, and everybody should just bow to them and buy from them. Weird. I though competition, even when the Leader is far ahead is a good thing and up to the Investors. No idea whether they can make it work, it is really hard, especially adjusting their tools, but they have written most tools themselves, so adjusting should be possible. Making those tools available to outsiders one day ? can happen, doesn't have to.
- sinenomine 4y ago
  > So many people here seem to be convinced that since NVidia is the leader in this tech all other attempts of building up something comparable is a loosing proposition A non-issue if you understand the design space of TPU-like AI accelerators. The understanding shouldn't even be necessary because the major players (Google, now Amazon) already build their TPUs and have been for years. Nvidia tax is too much.

mgrund 4y ago

Given Musks public statements on goals and strategies, I think you should view it more holistically. With Musk, everything is a step towards the end goal(s), like colonizing Mars (which might even be the only goal since it ties everything together; it’s much easier to send humanoids to prepare for colonization and it’s not like HCI seems at all a priority unlike many other AI efforts). My guess is that with Tesla, Musk aims to create AGI in a way he can control (as you may recall, he has previously talked about fears of the tech and control is a natural strategy to handle this). The cars are just the step that enables the next, so he basically just invests in the future over short term gains, which is a very reasonable business decision. Custom silicon is likely unavoidable if you want to lead the AGI field, so he would just be investing in the next step of the plan. Tesla Bot is a good indicator of this direction.

tsimionescu 4y ago
> Tesla Bot is a good indicator of this direction. Tesla Bot was the human in a bot costume dancing on stage [0], right? If so, then yes, this is quite a good indicator of the seriousness of this direction. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUP6Z5voiS8&t=1m2s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUP6Z5voiS8&t=1m2s
- relativ575 4y ago
  Urgh, they explicitly mentioned that it was a real human in the same presentation. Your obsession with bashing Tesla is unhealthy. Pick a valid criticism.
  - tsimionescu 4y ago
    Yes, I know that wasn't a lie, just a very corny joke. Did we ever get anything more substantive about Tesla Bot though?