[wdmeldon]

This comment is depressingly cynical. This is probably the single best definition of "hacking", as the community often refers to it, that I've seen in a very long time. One guy starts working on something only the biggest companies in the world dare attempt, throws together a minimal prototype built on top of existing technology. Just look at the picture of it.

Claims of commercial viability or beating Tesla are a bit ridiculous, but this is pretty damn amazing.

[cafebeen]

I think it's a fair comment given his quote "I know everything there is to know" and the headline of the article claiming he's "building a self-driving car by himself". I've always thought the "hacker" community attributed value to sharing and building off other's work, but maybe times have changed.

[smokeyj]

Have you ever spoken to a journalist? It's their job to sell clicks with charged headlines and over-blown quotes. If they followed you for a day I promise they'd generate some equally stupid quotes.

[cafebeen]

Yes, that kind of journalism exists, but does it have a place here?

[Tepix]

Seems obvious to me that the journalist was manipulating what he said which was that he is deeply familiar with the state of the art of AI tech.

[cafebeen]

To expand on that: '“I understand the state-of-the-art papers,” he says. “The math is simple"', which seems like an attitude of someone without a solid understanding of ML. But who knows, maybe he's figured out something the rest of the field hasn't...

[Aleman360]

If this is the "hacker ethos" then I want nothing to do with it:

> “I live by morals, I don’t live by laws,” Hotz declared in the story. “Laws are something made by assholes.”

> “ ‘If’ statements kill.”

> “I want power. Not power over people, but power over nature and the destiny of technology. I just want to know how it all works.”

[ocdtrekkie]

Hotz is pretty eccentric, but he's also pretty incredible. While technology wouldn't progress very far if everyone was like Hotz, I also don't think it would get very far without people like Hotz.

[wdmeldon]

Exactly. You can appreciate aspects of a person and the work they do without deifying them in their entirety. Linus Torvalds and weev (being an extreme example) fall into this category.

[Aleman360]

Agreed. I can appreciate people who can go heads down and get things done. Where it falls apart for me is when those people get deified--or deify themselves, like that last quote demonstrates. And when they demonstrate an unwillingness to collaborate.

[bloaf]

Then may you get what you want.

[robotresearcher]

He implemented methods from the literature using a sensor specifically designed for this application. Grad students do this for class projects.

[lawnchair_larry]

It's not "one guy starts working on something only the biggest companies in the world dare attempt" though, it's something hundreds of people have been doing for years now. He's more of a media hacker than he is a car hacker.

[betimsl]

You're just easily impressed, that's all :)