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Google Hires Former Star Apple Engineer Chris Lattner For Its AI Team (bloomberg.com)

Posted by msmash on from the big-score dept.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Chris Lattner, a legend in the world of Apple software, has joined another rival of the iPhone maker: Alphabet's Google, where he will work on artificial intelligence. Lattner announced the news on Twitter on Monday, saying he will start next week. His arrival at Mountain View, California-based Google comes after a brief stint as head of the automated driving program at Tesla, which he left in June. Lattner made a name for himself during a decade-plus career at Apple, where he created the popular programming language Swift. Lattner said he is joining Google Brain, the search giant's research unit. There he will work on a different software language: TensorFlow, Google's system designed to simplify the programming steps for AI, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

19 of 49 comments (clear)

  1. Just don't disagree with Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Because you'll be FIRED or CENSORED

    1. Re:Just don't disagree with Google by sl3xd · · Score: 1

      Because you'll be FIRED or CENSORED

      And that's just from the Google fanboi's. Speak ill of a Google product and the next thing you know you've been doxxed.

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      -- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
    2. Re:Just don't disagree with Google by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      Does this mean he should never write a chatbot for Google?

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      Ezekiel 23:20
  2. What about this? by Tsolias · · Score: 1, Troll

    Did they check his gender and his political views beforehand? I mean, i am ok with any of his opinions/options, but they would skip a lot of sjw drama in the next firing.

    1. Re:What about this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Passive-aggression is for weakling faggots.

  3. Re:Some people can't get along with program by 0110011001110101 · · Score: 1

    He's jumped one ship. I suppose that's "quite a bit", you know, if you're actually jumping off ships.

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    Don't anthropomorphize computers: they hate that.
  4. Who cares about Swift? by jgfenix · · Score: 1, Troll

    He is the man behind LLVM. I'm more worried about that.

    1. Re:Who cares about Swift? by sl3xd · · Score: 2

      He is the man behind LLVM. I'm more worried about that.

      And Clang - Clang pushed the state of the art forward, and gave GCC a much-needed kick in the ass.

      Not being an AI researcher, nor compiler developer, I wonder how much crossover there is between AI and optimizing compilers... part of me thinks there may be more similarities that would appear obvious at first.

      It'll be interesting to see if Lattner's as successful with AI as he has been with compilers.

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      -- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
    2. Re:Who cares about Swift? by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      I wonder how much crossover there is between AI and optimizing compilers

      A lot...if you're a Lisper, that is.

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      Ezekiel 23:20
    3. Re:Who cares about Swift? by imgod2u · · Score: 1

      The impression I get is that much of the hardcore algorithms behind AI are old and basically well-known and set. There's a lot of work to build frameworks (like Tensorflow) and API's that allow people to experiment with their own processing pipelines that take the basic AI building blocks (memory, error feedback, convolution) so that they can trial-and-error at a rapid pace using large data sets.

      That's certainly what Lattner is good at.

  5. Re:I'll never forget his shot against Kentucky in by Kohath · · Score: 1

    If you were an AI, you'd understand

  6. Re:AI by null+etc. · · Score: 1

    AI is right around the corner now. Any day soon it will appear. I promise.

    That's exactly what an AI bot would say, if it were trying to blend in with a geeky technical crowd.

  7. Re:He did well at Duke by methano · · Score: 1

    As a UNC fan, I'd say that's par for the course.

  8. Re:AI by sl3xd · · Score: 3, Funny

    The question is which will come first: AI or Fusion power?

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    -- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
  9. Re:AI by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

    Not "trust no110010001000"?

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    Ezekiel 23:20
  10. Re:Lattner is overrated by StreamingEagle · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Very funny. LLVM and Clang have revolutionized compiler technology. There are very few people in the computer science world with a resume as impressive as Chris Lattner. I'm not too surprised that he didn't thrive at Tesla. They are working too far up the stack. But Google develops low-level compute devices (Tensor processor), programming languages and frameworks, and he'll be a great fit to figure out how to make it all go fast.

  11. Re:I know what he did. by omibus · · Score: 1

    Which saves me the trouble of having to interop with C++. That is a win in my book (not all developers are game developers)

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    Bad User. No biscuit!
  12. what?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    But he is a white male ...

  13. Re:He did well at Duke by ayesnymous · · Score: 1

    Only one Duke player has ever gone on to be a starter on an NBA Championship team (and only 3 Duke players have EVER won NBA Championships). Compared to what - about 40 UNC players with NBA titles?