mrkisskiss
Member
Well, Lattner didn't last long
Lattner is still there. David Nister has left... Nister is a leading light in the computer vision and eye tracking world. I would imagine that amongst the things he's interested in pursuing at Nvidia is the in-car cameras... they have an idea for reading eye/gaze position, and even facial emotions to work out how... ahem... "suitable" or "capable" you are at driving, amongst other things (including warning you when you're driving manually, but may have not seen something coming up behind you because you're looking the wrong way). This is in-car AI, and different to the AI used in self driving.
I have to say though... Nister is probably close to a genius. Either he maxed out the vision tech at Tesla (FSD is no longer a detection problem; the car can detect everything it needs to with almost human level accuracy)... it's more a mapping, and then AI 'driving rules' problem.
Mapping is the key ingredient in self-driving... and it's also the part that Tesla have said nothing about.
I would *hope* this means Tesla is going to use Nvidia Mapworks for their HD mapping solution, and Nister left on good terms and will be a great conduit and ally inside Nvidia to move Tesla's map integrations forward.
Remember, FSD really uses the cameras/radar to detect objects that it shouldn't crash into, read the traffic lights etc. More or less everything else is down to the maps. The current AP reliance on lane-line recognition and craziness with different weather conditions is almost entirely solved once the car has localised itself on HD maps down to 1cm accuracy.
My reading: Nister improved Tesla Vision's computer vision to a really high standard. HIs expertise probably took him as far as they needed, and he didn't much fancy the other job opportunities there. Maps interested him, and Nvidia are doing that; not Tesla. Thus, move to Nvidia.
Hopefully that's the case - smart guy, very smart. Wishing him well.