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It's interesting because "selfdriving" cars themselves were seen as a form of "AI" at the height of that related goldrush, I'd say 2017-2018 or so.

andsoitis 3y ago
As someone else pointed out in the threads, the Apple Car division was around 2000 people, most of whom (AI folks?) have been redeployed, resulting in a remaining 600 being fired - so it is presumably a set of skills that Apple does not think makes sense to redeploy elsewhere such as other manufacturing plants or retail stores or PR department or finance department, etc.
- dTal 3y ago
  It's still interesting that self driving cars are framed as being something other than "AI".
  - darkwater 3y ago
    But I guess they laid off not the "AI people" working on self-driving cars. They most probably laid off experts in the automotive domain (I don't know, mechanical engineers working on creating parts for the prototypes, for example).
  - pfdietz 3y ago
    It's a promising sign. Technologies stop being called AI when they actually work.
  - brookst 3y ago
    AI is a capability, self driving cars are a product for a vertical; AI is useful for many things beyond self driving cars, and self driving cars need a lot of ingredients beyond AI. If we have to declare that self driving cars “are” a single thing, I’d say it’s manufacturing, not AI.
- jrmg 3y ago
  Or they’re people that refused to be redeployed because they didn’t like the other projects.
dTal 3y ago
It's absolutely AI. Perhaps this is one of those weird redefinitions that happens when a gold rush takes over a word, like how "crypto" now means digital currency instead of merely "encryption". But what does "AI" mean now then? Generative AI?
- yareal 3y ago
  Or when "crypto" meant encryption rather than simply "hidden". (For example crypto zoology)
epistasis 3y ago
Self driving cars were supposed to be around the corner because AI was advancing so fast. Instead of autonomous cars, we get generative AI out of this last rush of AI advances. Today, when people talk about "AI" as a startup they are talking about using this already existing technology. Self-driving was always a speculation that the science would advance into engineering within a sm timeframe, which is always a risky bet. I was hugely skeptical, told everyone that would listen that I didn't believe for a second that Musk would ever deliver on self driving. But I'm far more bullish on AI, we actually do have something new here, it just takes a lot of skill, talent, and discovery to deploy it in useful ways.
- extheat 3y ago
  The industry (OpenAI, DeepMind, et al) are not seriously working on generate AI. Thats a phase. They are working on AGI. AGI definitionally includes all human cognitive capabilities and that includes vehicular operation and real world interaction (in form of embodied robots). It is likely possible that even self driving cars can be done safely without needing AGI with sufficient scale, and I don’t think it’s that far off from happening.
  - epistasis 3y ago
    There are those who are working on AGI, who say they do not know when or if it will show up. Those who do think AGI will appear (if you can get them to define it) think it will come from a gradual increase in capability , just exactly the same way current advances have happened. Then there are those who are using existing generative AI to book revenue today. This includes OpenAI, and other generative AI providers, but it also includes companies like Accenture, which booked $600M in AI consulting last quarter and expects it to continue growing. There's GitHub co-pilot, which is booking revenue.
- _ea1k 3y ago
  > Self driving cars were supposed to be around the corner because AI was advancing so fast. To be fair, that was almost true. Waymo is doing well, Mobileye is looking good in demos, and even Tesla has a solid L2 system now. It seems inevitable that this will hit a really dramatic exponential growth phase within the next 2-3 years.

andsoitis 3y ago

As someone else pointed out in the threads, the Apple Car division was around 2000 people, most of whom (AI folks?) have been redeployed, resulting in a remaining 600 being fired - so it is presumably a set of skills that Apple does not think makes sense to redeploy elsewhere such as other manufacturing plants or retail stores or PR department or finance department, etc.

dTal 3y ago
It's still interesting that self driving cars are framed as being something other than "AI".
- darkwater 3y ago
  But I guess they laid off not the "AI people" working on self-driving cars. They most probably laid off experts in the automotive domain (I don't know, mechanical engineers working on creating parts for the prototypes, for example).
- pfdietz 3y ago
  It's a promising sign. Technologies stop being called AI when they actually work.
- brookst 3y ago
  AI is a capability, self driving cars are a product for a vertical; AI is useful for many things beyond self driving cars, and self driving cars need a lot of ingredients beyond AI. If we have to declare that self driving cars “are” a single thing, I’d say it’s manufacturing, not AI.
jrmg 3y ago
Or they’re people that refused to be redeployed because they didn’t like the other projects.

dTal 3y ago

It's absolutely AI. Perhaps this is one of those weird redefinitions that happens when a gold rush takes over a word, like how "crypto" now means digital currency instead of merely "encryption". But what does "AI" mean now then? Generative AI?

yareal 3y ago
Or when "crypto" meant encryption rather than simply "hidden". (For example crypto zoology)

epistasis 3y ago

Self driving cars were supposed to be around the corner because AI was advancing so fast. Instead of autonomous cars, we get generative AI out of this last rush of AI advances. Today, when people talk about "AI" as a startup they are talking about using this already existing technology. Self-driving was always a speculation that the science would advance into engineering within a sm timeframe, which is always a risky bet. I was hugely skeptical, told everyone that would listen that I didn't believe for a second that Musk would ever deliver on self driving. But I'm far more bullish on AI, we actually do have something new here, it just takes a lot of skill, talent, and discovery to deploy it in useful ways.

extheat 3y ago
The industry (OpenAI, DeepMind, et al) are not seriously working on generate AI. Thats a phase. They are working on AGI. AGI definitionally includes all human cognitive capabilities and that includes vehicular operation and real world interaction (in form of embodied robots). It is likely possible that even self driving cars can be done safely without needing AGI with sufficient scale, and I don’t think it’s that far off from happening.
- epistasis 3y ago
  There are those who are working on AGI, who say they do not know when or if it will show up. Those who do think AGI will appear (if you can get them to define it) think it will come from a gradual increase in capability , just exactly the same way current advances have happened. Then there are those who are using existing generative AI to book revenue today. This includes OpenAI, and other generative AI providers, but it also includes companies like Accenture, which booked $600M in AI consulting last quarter and expects it to continue growing. There's GitHub co-pilot, which is booking revenue.
_ea1k 3y ago
> Self driving cars were supposed to be around the corner because AI was advancing so fast. To be fair, that was almost true. Waymo is doing well, Mobileye is looking good in demos, and even Tesla has a solid L2 system now. It seems inevitable that this will hit a really dramatic exponential growth phase within the next 2-3 years.