7 ms·

My bet is on Carmack.

speed_spread 1y ago
I suspect Carmack in the Dancehall with the BFG.
ramesh31 1y ago
What has he shipped in the last 20 years? Oculus is one thing, but that was firmly within his wheelhouse of graphics optimization. Abrash and co. handled the hardware side of things. Carmack is a genius no doubt. But genius is the result of intense focused practice above and beyond anyone else in a particular area. Trying to extend that to other domains has been the downfall of so many others like him.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- alexey-salmin 1y ago
  Ever since Romero departed the id Software had shipped *checks notes* Quake II, Quake III, Doom 3 and Quake 4. Funnily enough Romero himself didn't ship much either. IMO it's one of the most iconic "duo breakups". The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
  - johnb231 1y ago
    Rage was Carmack's last big game at id Software before leaving. Romero is credited on 27 games since he left id Software. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Romero#Games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Romero#Games
    - alexey-salmin 1y ago
      None of them came close to the success of Quake, Doom or Commander Keen. If you examine the list it includes games like "Gunman Taco Truck" by his 12yo sun, SIGIL I/II (Doom mods) and a remake of Dangerous Dave. Most of the money he made post-id came from Facebook farming games. I'm not saying he's doing nothing. He's extremely talented and achieved more than most of us could ever dream of. I'm just pointing out that after he departed from id neither id nor him managed to replicate the earlier success. Who knows, maybe times had changed and it would be the same even if he stayed.
      - johnb231 1y ago
        Their success with Doom and Quake was a confluence of things that cannot be replicated today. Carmack's programming talent gave them at least a year head start versus the competition. They introduced a new genre with no competition. Romero wrote game development tools that made them productive and able to deliver quickly. The artists and game designers created something innovative and fun to play, that stood the test of time. Duke Nukem was released in 1996, then Unreal was released in 1998 and that's when they lost their technical advantage. The market became saturated with FPS. Romero and Tom Hall founded Ion Storm which produced one successful game - Deus Ex. He gave up on AAA and went back to creating small games. Carmack's licensed code was the basis of many successful games beyond the 90s, including Half Life 1 and 2 and the latest Doom games. We wouldn't have Half Life without id Software. Maybe Valve Software wouldn't exist.
WithinReason 1y ago
"Graphics Carmack" is a genius but that doesn't mean that "AI Carmack" is too.
- MrLeap 1y ago
  I wouldn't bet against him. "The Bitter Lesson" may imply an advantage to someone who historically has been at the tip of the spear for squeezing the most juice out of GPU hosted parallel computation. Graphics rendering and AI live on the same pyramid of technology. A pyramid with a lot of bricks with the initials "JC" carved into them, as it turns out.
  - kadushka 1y ago
    Only if computation is the bottleneck. GPT-4.5 shows it’s not.
  - mhh__ 1y ago
    I would be long carmack in the sense that I think he will have good judgement and taste running a business but I really don't see anything in common between AI and graphics. Maybe someone better at aphorisms than me can say it better but I really don't see it. There are definitely mid-level low hanging fruits that would look like the kinds of things he did in graphics but the game just seems completely different.
  - KerrAvon 1y ago
    I think people would do well to read about Philo Farnsworth in this context.
- cheschire 1y ago
  Carmack is always a genius, but like most people he requires luck, and like most people, the house always wins. Poor Armadillo Aerospace.
- dumdedum123 1y ago
  Exactly. I know him and like him. He is a genius programmer for sure BUT people forget that the last successful product that he released was Doom 3 over 20 years ago. Armadillo was a failure and Oculus went nowhere. He's also admitted he doesn't have much of math chops, which you need if you want to make a dent in AI. (Although the same could have been said of 3D graphics when he did Wolfenstein and Doom, so perhaps he'll surprise us) I wish him well TBH
cmpxchg8b 1y ago
Appeal to authority is a logical fallacy. People often fall into the trap of thinking that because they are highly intelligent and an expert in one domain that this makes them an expert in one or more other domains. You see this all the time.
- edanm 1y ago
  Expecting an expert in one thing to also be pretty good at other domains, especially when they're relatively related, isn't a fallacy.
- rurp 1y ago
  Bayesian reasoning isn't a fallacy. A known expert in one domain is often correct about things in a related one. The post didn't claim that Carmack is right, just that that he's who they would bet on to be right, which seems perfectly reasonable to me.
- mrandish 1y ago
  > People often fall into the trap of thinking that because they are highly intelligent and an expert in one domain that this makes them an expert in one or more other domains. While this is certainly true, I'm not aware of any evidence that Carmack thinks this way about himself. I think he's been successful enough that's he's personally 'post-economic' and is choosing to spend his time working on unsolved hard problems he thinks are extremely interesting and potentially tractable. In fact, he's actively sought out domain experts to work with him and accelerate his learning.

I suspect Carmack in the Dancehall with the BFG.

What has he shipped in the last 20 years? Oculus is one thing, but that was firmly within his wheelhouse of graphics optimization. Abrash and co. handled the hardware side of things. Carmack is a genius no doubt. But genius is the result of intense focused practice above and beyond anyone else in a particular area. Trying to extend that to other domains has been the downfall of so many others like him.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
alexey-salmin 1y ago
Ever since Romero departed the id Software had shipped *checks notes* Quake II, Quake III, Doom 3 and Quake 4. Funnily enough Romero himself didn't ship much either. IMO it's one of the most iconic "duo breakups". The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
- johnb231 1y ago
  Rage was Carmack's last big game at id Software before leaving. Romero is credited on 27 games since he left id Software. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Romero#Games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Romero#Games
  - alexey-salmin 1y ago
    None of them came close to the success of Quake, Doom or Commander Keen. If you examine the list it includes games like "Gunman Taco Truck" by his 12yo sun, SIGIL I/II (Doom mods) and a remake of Dangerous Dave. Most of the money he made post-id came from Facebook farming games. I'm not saying he's doing nothing. He's extremely talented and achieved more than most of us could ever dream of. I'm just pointing out that after he departed from id neither id nor him managed to replicate the earlier success. Who knows, maybe times had changed and it would be the same even if he stayed.
    - johnb231 1y ago
      Their success with Doom and Quake was a confluence of things that cannot be replicated today. Carmack's programming talent gave them at least a year head start versus the competition. They introduced a new genre with no competition. Romero wrote game development tools that made them productive and able to deliver quickly. The artists and game designers created something innovative and fun to play, that stood the test of time. Duke Nukem was released in 1996, then Unreal was released in 1998 and that's when they lost their technical advantage. The market became saturated with FPS. Romero and Tom Hall founded Ion Storm which produced one successful game - Deus Ex. He gave up on AAA and went back to creating small games. Carmack's licensed code was the basis of many successful games beyond the 90s, including Half Life 1 and 2 and the latest Doom games. We wouldn't have Half Life without id Software. Maybe Valve Software wouldn't exist.

WithinReason 1y ago

"Graphics Carmack" is a genius but that doesn't mean that "AI Carmack" is too.

MrLeap 1y ago
I wouldn't bet against him. "The Bitter Lesson" may imply an advantage to someone who historically has been at the tip of the spear for squeezing the most juice out of GPU hosted parallel computation. Graphics rendering and AI live on the same pyramid of technology. A pyramid with a lot of bricks with the initials "JC" carved into them, as it turns out.
- kadushka 1y ago
  Only if computation is the bottleneck. GPT-4.5 shows it’s not.
- mhh__ 1y ago
  I would be long carmack in the sense that I think he will have good judgement and taste running a business but I really don't see anything in common between AI and graphics. Maybe someone better at aphorisms than me can say it better but I really don't see it. There are definitely mid-level low hanging fruits that would look like the kinds of things he did in graphics but the game just seems completely different.
- KerrAvon 1y ago
  I think people would do well to read about Philo Farnsworth in this context.
cheschire 1y ago
Carmack is always a genius, but like most people he requires luck, and like most people, the house always wins. Poor Armadillo Aerospace.
dumdedum123 1y ago
Exactly. I know him and like him. He is a genius programmer for sure BUT people forget that the last successful product that he released was Doom 3 over 20 years ago. Armadillo was a failure and Oculus went nowhere. He's also admitted he doesn't have much of math chops, which you need if you want to make a dent in AI. (Although the same could have been said of 3D graphics when he did Wolfenstein and Doom, so perhaps he'll surprise us) I wish him well TBH

cmpxchg8b 1y ago

Appeal to authority is a logical fallacy. People often fall into the trap of thinking that because they are highly intelligent and an expert in one domain that this makes them an expert in one or more other domains. You see this all the time.

edanm 1y ago
Expecting an expert in one thing to also be pretty good at other domains, especially when they're relatively related, isn't a fallacy.
rurp 1y ago
Bayesian reasoning isn't a fallacy. A known expert in one domain is often correct about things in a related one. The post didn't claim that Carmack is right, just that that he's who they would bet on to be right, which seems perfectly reasonable to me.
mrandish 1y ago
> People often fall into the trap of thinking that because they are highly intelligent and an expert in one domain that this makes them an expert in one or more other domains. While this is certainly true, I'm not aware of any evidence that Carmack thinks this way about himself. I think he's been successful enough that's he's personally 'post-economic' and is choosing to spend his time working on unsolved hard problems he thinks are extremely interesting and potentially tractable. In fact, he's actively sought out domain experts to work with him and accelerate his learning.