Tesla’s head of AI is out

Photo By Michael Macor/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images

A key leader in the development of autopilot, which requires supervision by a human, is leaving the company.

Karpathy wrote that it was a pleasure to help the company towards its goals over the last five years. Autopilot graduated from lane keeping to city streets and I look forward to seeing the strong team continue that. Karpathy wants to revisit his long-term passion for technical work in artificial intelligence, open source and education, but has no concrete plans for what's next.

I have no concrete plans for what’s next but look to spend more time revisiting my long-term passions around technical work in AI, open source and education.

— Andrej Karpathy (@karpathy) July 13, 2022

The departure seems to have been smooth as CEO Musk replied kindly to Karpathy on the social networking site. Karpathy said in March that he was taking a sabbatical and would return to the company this month.

Thanks for everything you have done for Tesla! It has been an honor working with you.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 13, 2022

Chris Lattner was the former Apple executive who took over the top artificial intelligence job atTesla. Karpathy oversaw the growth and development of the controversial autopilot software, which is currently under investigation by the federal government, despite the fact that it was used to crash into emergency vehicles.

Karpathy was one of nearly 200 employees who were laid off from the company focused on autopilot.