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John Carmack moving to a new position at Oculus

kojack
MVP
MVP
From his facebook page:

Starting this week, I’m moving to a "Consulting CTO” position with Oculus.

I will still have a voice in the development work, but it will only be consuming a modest slice of my time.


As for what I am going to be doing with the rest of my time: When I
think back over everything I have done across games, aerospace, and VR, I
have always felt that I had at least a vague “line of sight” to the
solutions, even if they were unconventional or unproven. I have
sometimes wondered how I would fare with a problem where the solution
really isn’t in sight. I decided that I should give it a try before I
get too old.

I’m going to work on artificial general intelligence (AGI).


I think it is possible, enormously valuable, and that I have a
non-negligible chance of making a difference there, so by a Pascal’s
Mugging sort of logic, I should be working on it.

For the time
being at least, I am going to be going about it “Victorian Gentleman
Scientist” style, pursuing my inquiries from home, and drafting my son
into the work.

Runner up for next project was cost effective
nuclear fission reactors, which wouldn’t have been as suitable for that
style of work.

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2547632585471243&id=100006735798590

https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1194754916293722114


So it sounds like he'll be less involved with VR from now on, focusing more on AI in his personal time instead. If that's what he's interested in, good on him.


Author: Oculus Monitor,  Auto Oculus Touch,  Forum Dark Mode, Phantom Touch Remover,  X-Plane Fixer
Hardware: Threadripper 1950x, MSI Gaming Trio 2080TI, Asrock X399 Taich
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kevinw729
Honored Visionary

jab said:

https://www.pcgamer.com/john-carmack-says-hes-not-satisfied-with-the-pace-of-progress-in-vr-developm...

I guess we'r not the only ones frustrated with Oculus settling for Rift 1.5 and Quest.



We can all understand his frustration - a factor in why he kept his operation separate of the Californian office. I wonder with his moving on, if Oculus Texas will now be rolled into the group as has been previously attempted? Also understand he was mainly focused on the mobileVR aspect of the business, with limited involvement with the PC side, and had previously been directly involved with the GearVR roll-out and standalone initiative. After his teams amazing work on redressing the issues with the Rift-S and Quest inside-out tracking, I am sure he feels a focus on other business is needed while he is still young. 
https://vrawards.aixr.org/ "The Out-of-Home Immersive Entertainment Frontier: Expanding Interactive Boundaries in Leisure Facilities" https://www.amazon.co.uk/Out-Home-Immersive-Entertainment-Frontier/dp/1472426959

OmegaM4N
Expert Trustee
Why all this talk of Doom. o:)
CV1/Vive-knuckles)/Dell Vr Visor/Go/Quest II/ PSVR.

RuneSR2
Grand Champion

kevinw729 said:


jab said:

https://www.pcgamer.com/john-carmack-says-hes-not-satisfied-with-the-pace-of-progress-in-vr-developm...

I guess we'r not the only ones frustrated with Oculus settling for Rift 1.5 and Quest.



We can all understand his frustration - a factor in why he kept his operation separate of the Californian office. I wonder with his moving on, if Oculus Texas will now be rolled into the group as has been previously attempted? Also understand he was mainly focused on the mobileVR aspect of the business, with limited involvement with the PC side, and had previously been directly involved with the GearVR roll-out and standalone initiative. After his teams amazing work on redressing the issues with the Rift-S and Quest inside-out tracking, I am sure he feels a focus on other business is needed while he is still young. 


So soon Abrash is the only one left of the original team...? I don't mind changes in a company, but it feels like all the brain power has (nearly) left - or maybe Oculus has hired some extremely skilled persons to take over, but then I've not noticed much info about them...  I hope Jason Rubin and Hugo Barra are able to push things forward. 

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD
"Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

kevinw729
Honored Visionary

RuneSR2 said:
....
So soon Abrash is the only one left of the original team...? I don't mind changes in a company, but it feels like all the brain power has (nearly) left - or maybe Oculus has hired some extremely skilled persons to take over, but then I've not noticed much info about them...  I hope Jason Rubin and Hugo Barra are able to push things forward. 



Agree RuneSR2 - change is inevitable, and those that fight against it are wasting their time.
As one that follows many tech start-ups, OculusVR has actually retained certain members of the original team longer than other corporations that are acquired. The "18-month rule" is usually employed when a major acquisition takes part, with the majority of the key executives departing. Usually they are retained longer if irregularities in deployment of the business plan ensue, or if there is a need for their expertise being core to operations of the plan. We have seen both here. 

With the move away from his core issues, other than applying his genius in addressing the tracking issues and performance problems with Rift-S and Quest, it was obvious there was no real interest to continue full time. Also we need to understand that the company has veered quite considerably from the original plan of attack - the failure to generate initial sales targets in the PC sector has seen the pivot to Standalone - and with the pulling back we saw the last of the core of original executives depart (after dropping the CV2 plan).

I had hoped that the remaining team of experts would be able to apply themselves to the Quest Link - but it seems that is being overseen by a different group, and may be being handled in a different way to previous hardware releases. Anyway, they still have access to that talent pool now as a contractor if needed.
https://vrawards.aixr.org/ "The Out-of-Home Immersive Entertainment Frontier: Expanding Interactive Boundaries in Leisure Facilities" https://www.amazon.co.uk/Out-Home-Immersive-Entertainment-Frontier/dp/1472426959

Anonymous
Not applicable
Speaking of Quest Link, wasn't the beta due out this month?

kevinw729
Honored Visionary

dburne said:

Speaking of Quest Link, wasn't the beta due out this month?




Yeah, there are a number of developments this month - seems weird that Link was not launched at the beginning of the month though? We also have a announcement about their BE plans... it has been suggested that the announcements have been... delayed. Not sure these are being impacted by the latest internal restructuring - we shall see. 
https://vrawards.aixr.org/ "The Out-of-Home Immersive Entertainment Frontier: Expanding Interactive Boundaries in Leisure Facilities" https://www.amazon.co.uk/Out-Home-Immersive-Entertainment-Frontier/dp/1472426959

Anonymous
Not applicable
I will still have a voice in the development work, but it will only be consuming a modest slice of my time.


Considering a normal work day for Carmack is 12 to 13 hours, what exactly does a 'modest slice' amount to? 😛

RuneSR2
Grand Champion
Slightly strange to have Stormland launching before Link, maybe Link has had some unexpected issues... Stormland, now when Asgard's Wrath isn't that new anymore, could be the perfect flagship to push Link - and maybe it still can be... 

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD
"Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

hoppingbunny123
Rising Star
thats interesting. i think he will try to use a neural network to generate responses or go get deep-mind from google.

what i think would be nice for ai on a more practical level is procedural generation of realistic 3d environments that would allow walking or bike riding in vr through an expanding vr world.

using a game state story design model to hold the various generated models. then add to this 3d model rigging to allow for realistic moving models in vr environments as you bike through procedural generated 3d environments that look like fortnite. thats what im going to try to do one day, i hope. decade or two from now, but he has the power to try right now.

the 2d course at udemy,shows how to build the state model, i cant link to it but thats the name of the course;

Complete C# Unity Developer 2D: Learn to Code Making Games

https://www.udemy.com/course/procedural-terrain-generation-with-unity/

MowTin
Expert Trustee
I think he realizes that VR is limited by the limitations of modern processors. We need a major breakthrough in processor technology. 
i7 9700k 3090 rtx   CV1, Rift-S, Index, G2