Slashdot Mirror
Carnegie Mellon Struggles After Uber Poaches Top Robotics Researchers
ideonexus sends a report from the Wall Street Journal (paywalled) saying Uber has poached 40 researchers from Carnegie Mellon University in an attempt to jump-start development of autonomous vehicle technology. In February, Uber and CMU's National Robotics Engineering Center announced a partnership to work together on the technology. But according to the WSJ, Uber quickly offered massive bonuses and salary increases to simply bring many of the researchers in-house. The NREC's new director made a presentation a few weeks ago about strategies for rebuilding and recovering. The presentation said NREC’s funding from contracts to develop technology with the U.S. Department of Defense and other organizations was expected to sink as low as $17 million from the $30 million originally projected for this year. Some contracts scientists were working on disappeared when the researchers left, accounting for the drop in funding. And it appeared the center would have to raise salaries significantly to prevent more exits. A few scientists left NREC for other companies in Pittsburgh because of concerns the center might be shut down, said two people familiar with the departures.
... that they'll even spend probably billions trying to replace the minimum wage guy at the wheel of the taxi with some automated system that probably won't work as well for decades if ever?
Someone explain this techno nerd obsession with replacing people with robots, I just don't get it.
It doesn't have to bear fruit, just block others from getting said research and thereby blocking them. A strategy used by MS.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
If they had let the researchers work through the university, they would have saved themselves a lot of money paying for the research.
Uber apparently thinks they need to own patents on self driving technology rather than just mass produced self driving cars ASAP.
Google is light years ahead of everyone else when it comes to navigating highly complex city streets. By destroying a research facility and bringing researchers in house, they've pretty much just cooked the golden egg. A university has a much better inroad to private industry and public funding to work together to solve this kind of complex problem.
They didn't just need those researchers. They needed access to everyone's researchers who are working on solving this problem. It's a huge win for everyone when people no longer drive cars and everyone gets to their destination safely. There's a huge motivation for collaboration. And apparently Uber isn't interested in that sort of thing.
So a university is out of a lot of money and valuable education resources for nothing.
Work Safe Porn
Basic Income... for someone to live on? Where? Your numbers are a grave underestimation even considering a rural Georgia community. When I was renting a (shitty)3 bedroom trailer for me and my wife, that was $600/month alone. That leaves $150 for...what? Weekly food that would give us the proper nutrition to live healthily was $100 by itself. If we wanted to live on junk food that would cause us to be bed-confined at 400 lbs each, $100 might get us 3 weeks worth. Electricity just to run a fridge and a couple of fans every night cost me $80 monthly on the low end. Fuel to get back and forth to work on (Republican town doesn't believe in public transit)? At that time it was $120 a month (couldn't afford to get my motorcycle yet). I was making $1200 a month working my ass off for RadioShack, and almost couldn't afford a pot to piss in on that! Internet? Local library once a week. TV? Built my own OTA antenna from scrap metal because getting one from RadioShack was $30 I couldn't afford to waste. With your numbers, I might as well have been homeless. At least I probably would have been healthier then with $750 going to fuel and food only.