Andrej Karpathy, the deep learning and computer vision expert who was hired five years ago as Tesla’s director of AI and led Autopilot vision team, is officially leaving the company.
Karpathy was on a four-month leave of absence, fueling widespread speculation as to whether he would return.
He announced his resignation on Twitter Wednesday. Karpathy wrote, “It was a great pleasure helping Tesla towards its goals over 5 years and a difficult choice to part ways.”
“In that time, Autopilot moved from lane keeping and city streets to lane keeping, and I look forward to seeing the extraordinarily strong Autopilot team continue that momentum.”
Karpathy added that he has “no concrete plans for where it’s going” and that he wants to return to his long-term passions in technical work in AI and open source education.
As CEO Elon Musk responded to Karpathy’s tweet, it seems that the departure was amicable. Thanks for everything you have done for Tesla! It has been an honor working with you.
Karpathy, as AI chief, has overseen the development and growth of Tesla’s controversial Autopilot driver assistance software.
Karpathy’s departure comes after close to 200 employees of Tesla were laid off. They are primarily focused on Autopilot.
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