Andrej Karpathy, an OpenAI cofounder and former director of AI at Tesla, admitted that he’s not on the forefront of the field and feels nervous about it, despite all his accomplishments in AI.
In an interview on the No Priors podcast on Friday, the independent AI researcher, who is also the founder of Eureka Labs, explained a “psychosis” he’s been suffering from, even as AI agents have made his workflow and life at home more convenient.
A tipping point came in December, when he noticed he was writing just 20% of his code with 80% delegated to an agent, reversing from an earlier split with 80% done by himself and 20% by an agent. That trend has continued.
“I don’t think I’ve typed like a line of code probably since December, basically, which is an extremely large change,” Karpathy said. “I don’t think a normal person actually realizes that this happened or how dramatic it was.”
He’s not alone and added that the default workflow for building software has completely changed in recent months as agentic AI has exploded in popularity.
OpenClaw in particular has swept through the tech industry as users connect it to various applications, allowing it to manage calendars, browse the web, shop online, read files, write emails, and send messages via tools like WhatsApp.
Its potential remains massive, and Karpathy described his struggle to fully envision what could come next, saying “I’m just like in the state of psychosis of trying to figure out what’s possible, trying to push it to the limit.”
He added: “I want to be at the forefront of it, and I’m very antsy that I’m not at the forefront of it. I see lots of people on Twitter doing all kinds of things, and they all sound like really good ideas. And I need to be at the forefront or I feel extremely nervous.”
Karpathy also revealed that he went through a “claw psychosis” in January while integrating an agent with various smart functions at his home.
In fact, he’s dubbed it “Dobby the House Elf claw,” and it now controls his home’s sound system, lighting, security functions, shades, HVAC, pool and spa.
Previously, managing each one required using several different apps. But now, Karpathy said he just instructs Dobby what to do by sending messages via WhatsApp in natural language.
Dobby also alerts him with a message when it uses the home’s security cameras to detect a FedEx truck that dropped off a delivery at his doorstep.
“So Dobby is in charge of the house,” he said. “It’s been really fun to have these macro actions that maintain my house. I haven’t like really pushed it way more beyond that, and I think people are doing a lot more crazy things with it.”
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