Ford Hires 550 Former Argo.ai Engineers, Creates Latitude.ai

Not mentioned here, but in this Techcrunch article, is Ford’s expensive flip-flopping on AV: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;techcrunch.com&#x2F;2023&#x2F;03&#x2F;02&#x2F;ford-forms-automated-driving-subsidiary&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;techcrunch.com&#x2F;2023&#x2F;03&#x2F;02&#x2F;ford-forms-automated-drivi...</a><p>&gt; Argo AI burst on the scene in 2017 stacked with a $1 billion investment from Ford — and Iater an investment from VW. The startup shuttered suddenly in October 2022 after Ford and VW determined they would no longer pursue AV technology, at least not under the Argo umbrella. Ford said, at the time, it was making a strategic decision to shift its resources to developing advanced driver assistance systems, and not autonomous vehicle technology that can be applied to robotaxis. The company said it recorded a $2.7 billion non-cash, pretax impairment on its investment in Argo AI.

When I was working at Ford a few years ago, many Ford engineers worked very closely with Argo engineers. Sharing code or data was common, they used our internal tools, and sometimes we would go in-person to troubleshoot with them. A lot of their employees had come from Ford, and so they knew who to call and even already had our numbers.<p>All that to say I&#x27;m not surprised to see they hired back many of those people. Ford is a large company and Argo felt just like any other team within the company at times.

I wish Ford the best of luck. The last time I worked at Ford AV, there wasn&#x27;t a clear sense of direction after the initial kickoff project that was done to publicize Argo&#x27;s AV chops. Hopefully this will have a better ending than that initial attempt.

&gt; Latitude AI – a Ford subsidiary – is developing new automated driving technology with an initial focus on a hands-free, eyes-off driver assist system for next-generation Ford vehicles<p>Not that every company should follow Tesla&#x27;s approach, but I think it would be great if other companies don&#x27;t get too focused on their production systems being eyes-off, hands-off. I&#x27;d much prefer more people having access to these systems _sooner_ with monitoring to ensure that they&#x27;re paying attention.<p>Tesla Autopilot, Hyundai&#x27;s lane keep, etc. are such fantastic systems when you commute in high traffic areas and&#x2F;or you have a long commute - even if you have to monitor the thing.

That can&#x27;t possibly be the outcome Argo.ai engineers were hoping for, since any stock&#x2F;options they had in Argo presumably vanished and all they got in the end was a job @ Ford.

I wonder if there’s space in the self-driving field for a self-driving-only company. Like, your product is a sensor and software package, and car manufacturers install it in their cars. They get to skip the R&amp;D investment (I imagine there’s a mismatch between current car company management expertise and the management required for overseeing self-driving development), and potentially they get to avoid some of the liability (in the media at least, although probably they still take on the bulk of legal liability).

how many engineers does it take to unscrew a lightbulb? aka could we solve the blinding headlight problem first? and eliminate touchscreen controls for essentials second?

The name is a little bit unfortunate. There&#x27;s already a company in the AI space called Latitude: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;latitude.io" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;latitude.io</a>

Is it just me or did they borrow the Fedora logo?

&gt; Ford hired about 550 employees formerly of Argo AI<p>is pretty weird framing. Did they acquire the company? Or certain parts of it? I&#x27;m gonna guess they didn&#x27;t actually recruit and interview all of them one by one.