Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that the automaker is going to hold a “super fun AI party/hackathon” at his house as the automaker is trying to increase its hiring effort.
As we reported last week, Tesla has increased its hiring effort for its AI and Autopilot, and it created a new landing page for Autopilot team recruitment.
It includes some interesting comments and images about the program, including a new video of what Autopilot can see, a Cybertruck simulation, and more.
The team reports directly to Musk, and now he is getting personally involved in the recruitment process in a novel way.
Tesla has been known to have a presence at some AI conferences and throw parties to recruit people in the industry.
Now Musk says that Tesla will throw a party for AI people at his own home, and it will also include a hackathon:
Tesla will hold a super fun AI party/hackathon at my house with the Tesla AI/autopilot team in about four weeks. Invitations going out soon.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 2, 2020
The automaker has often worked with white hat hackers to reinforce its security systems and recruit.
Last year, Tesla went to Vancouver for Pwn2Own, which is a hacking competition run by Trend Micro’s Zero Day Initiative (ZDI).
It offered a Model 3 to whoever manages to find and exploit certain vulnerabilities in the vehicle’s system.
A hacking duo targeted the infotainment system on the Tesla Model 3 and used “a JIT bug in the renderer” to manage to take control of the system.
They left with a brand new Model 3.
Tesla is going back to Pwn2Own this year, and they are challenging hackers to crack its car, and putting around $1 million on the line.
Musk didn’t elaborate on what this new hackathon will be about, but it’s clearly a new recruiting effort.
The CEO added in additional comments on Twitter:
We are (obviously) also looking for world-class chip designers to join our team, based in both Palo Alto & Austin.
And he also talked about coders:
“Our NN is initially in Python for rapid iteration, then converted to C++/C/raw metal driver code for speed (important!). Also, tons of C++/C engineers needed for vehicle control & entire rest of car. Educational background is irrelevant, but all must pass hardcore coding test.”
In previous comments, Musk said that he doesn’t care about degrees and when hiring new people, he instead focuses on achievements and projects they worked on.
He reiterated this in new comments following his hackathon announcement:
A PhD is definitely not required. All that matters is a deep understanding of AI & ability to implement NNs in a way that is actually useful (latter point is what’s truly hard). Don’t care if you even graduated high school.
Tesla’s party and hackathon are supposed to happen in “about four weeks,” according to Musk.
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