I don't disagree with that. I've worked with some very smart people in my 20s who sounded similar to Hotz -- enthusiastic, retrospectively naive about their understanding of a field, but above all, superbly intelligent. They did really great things, things that maybe didn't work perfectly or as envisioned, but still things that might scared off more experienced folks.

But also now that I am in my 30s, and they are as well, we frequently look back at that time and laugh about being that young. "Man, you were fun to work with, but also what were we thinking"

So I definitely wish Hotz all the luck. If nothing else, the more smart people working on the problem of self driving cars, the better.

My comment mostly stemmed from amusement of his quotes.

There have been people in my past that wanted to start a project that I didn't think they were capable of finishing, because either it was too large, they didn't have the skills/smarts (not that I thought they were stupid, just that I thought it would take exceptional intelligence), or both. A few of them succeeded, either in the original task, or the effort and journey was well worth the price paid.

Part of this was hubris. The thought of someone I considered less capable than myself accomplishing something I felt I could not damaged my ego. This was humbling.

Part of this was experience. The experience to know that attempting the hard or impossible is sometimes worth the effort, whether you succeed or not. This was educational.

Part of this was ambition. Ambition to do something new, to ignore the naysayers and noways when needed, and forge your own path, which I've always felt short on, but have steadily worked on over time. This is ongoing.

Another part of my problem is that I have too many projects I want to do. Learning about AI is one example, but I've instead done a series of web and mobile apps which are much closer to success. It would take a lot of time to read all the AI research and become good enough to tackle a problem like self-driving cars, and I've only got my spare time at home, with which I must also make sure my wife remains happy (ignoring her seems to make her unhappy for some reason) and keep my sanity (read fiction or play a video game some times) and take care of my house (the lawn just won't stay mowed).

I do remember being about 19 and thinking I was the best programmer in the world. By about 22 I had rewritten as much of my old code as I possibly could because it was so horrible. Somewhere between there and now I've gotten a cynical bit of humility to tamper my ego. I think the cynical part is that my ambition has not lessened, just my belief that I can succeed.

One Steve Jobs philosophy is focus and say no. I'm guessing I could do better if I said no to all but a single project.

A friend of mine in college had a very good saying about this that I always keep in mind:

"There's nothing like succeeding at something you weren't even qualified to attempt."

When you fail at something you're not qualified for, it doesn't feel like failure. You're able to get right back up without even bruising your ego.

Thanks for sharing.

I like this.

Sure. But that belief is a genuine worry when you are talking about creating something that'll move a hulk of metal down a road at 70mph.

if we don't have laws currently, we sure as hell need them. i can't imagine letting everybody try their own self-driving software.

Millions of drunk people drive on the roads. People can buy assault weapons, with no training and background checks. People who make self-driving software should be the least of our concerns.

There are laws against drunk driving (and harsh penalties for those that are caught), and you can't buy a firearm without a background check from a dealer (with more states requiring gun show dealers perform background checks now, too).

People building untested self driving cars is an entirely legitimate concern.

There aren't laws against driving while teenage:

"Nationally, 963,000 teen drivers were involved in police-reported motor vehicle crashes in 2013, which resulted in 383,000 injuries and 2,865 deaths"

I'd worry about that more than the odd geek with a laptop.

Legitimate: yes. Worthy of concern: absolutely not.

I don't think this would help at all because 1) most people are not interested in making their own self-driving car and 2) the small niche who is interested isn't going to worry about following the laws, as Hotz states in the piece.

From the article:

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

Indeed, I would have a word with whoever made the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

This is just nitpicking. He is clearly talking about social laws, not fundamental laws of nature which are clearly different in scope and application.

So he'll feel morally okay if he kills or cripples someone by being reckless?

i wonder where he believes laws came from ...

From assholes. i.e. other people.

"Assholes", it would appear.

This was my first thought when I read the article. There ought to be some test track qualification before allowing a new system to be tested on the public road.

we already have enough laws. responsibility doesn't change because a computer does some thinking for you. Besides, how many people are actually writing their own self-driving software?

>Naivety is a very good thing at times.

Thats what I think 'foolish' means in "Stay hungry, stay foolish."

"Naivety is a very good thing at times."

He might not be naive.

>>I've seen average people achieve incredible things

In my opinion, we must never underestimate people.

>>but just because they started work on things that no-one else thought they could complete.

Nothing fails like smartness. The reason why a few people achieve the impossible while far more intelligent and smart people don't is because of the curse of intelligence makes them believe certain things are impossible.

The fool didn't know it was impossible, so he did it.