Hacker News Reader

Comment by earthshot | Hacker News Reader

I’m old enough to remember when geohot was loudly claiming that he’d cracked full self driving but was shutting it down without selling the assets because the government is mean.

It was hilarious to see most of HN treating that obvious nonsense as credible. This is hilarious too, because of the context around his previous claims.

View on HN

> It was hilarious to see most of HN treating that obvious nonsense as credible.

I remember it very differently. Maybe there was more than one post on HN, but it seemed like everybody was eviscerating him and basically calling him a fraud.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12840368

In fact, going through those comments now (I've only skimmed) I can't find anyone actually defending the guy.

Yeah but check when he first started: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12492566

> Surprised with all the skepticism here. It's not perfect but this guy is a hardware, software, and AI genius and this could very well speed up the self driving race by several years or even more

> Jailbreaking cars now? Good for him! Can't wait to see this in action.

> Go Go GeoHotz!

> Pretty exciting for sure.

> If it really works like they say and can be added to any car, that's pretty huge. I'd definitely buy one. I wonder what it takes to install it ...

There are lots of skeptical comments too - maybe 50-50. I think it was more positive on Reddit though.

There's a difference between when geohot made an announcement that he's working on a hard problem like you referenced, and when he said he'd solved the problem (which would trivially make him a billionaire) but just couldn't be bothered to deal with regulation like OP mentioned.

He jokes around but the current product is largely what he promised the first time with the some of the safety flaws fixed - it doesn't replace the mirror, it tracks the drivers eyes to check they are looking unlike say Tesla.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com