Any questions about what OpenAI and Tesla alum Andrej Karpathy might be pursuing next have been answered. Today, Karpathy announced his new venture, Eureka Labs, via his X account, describing it as an innovative AI-native educational platform.
Eureka Labs aims to create a “teacher + AI symbiosis,” where expert-created course materials are enhanced and guided by an AI Teaching Assistant.
As Karpathy articulated on X, “@EurekaLabsAI is the culmination of my passion for AI and education over ~2 decades. It’s still early days, but I wanted to announce the company to build publicly instead of keeping it a secret.”
Expanding Education's Reach and Depth
Karpathy emphasized that the ideal learning experience involves expert teachers who are “deeply passionate, great at teaching, infinitely patient, and fluent in all languages.” For example, American physicist Richard Feynman would be an excellent choice for teaching physics.
However, such experts are scarce and cannot tutor all 8 billion people on demand. Karpathy believes that generative AI can make this ideal learning experience achievable. At Eureka Labs, teachers will develop course content while the AI Teaching Assistant will guide students, allowing a comprehensive curriculum to flourish on a unified platform.
“If we succeed, anyone can learn anything, significantly expanding education in both reach (a larger audience) and depth (individual learning across diverse subjects),” Karpathy forecasted. The company’s inaugural product will be LLM101n, described as “the world’s obviously best AI course,” aimed at helping students train their own AI.
The course will be accessible online, and Eureka Labs also plans to facilitate both digital and physical cohorts for collaborative learning.
When questioned about the accessibility of course materials, Karpathy expressed a desire for Eureka Labs to be a self-sustaining business but also emphasized his commitment to making educational content widely available. He indicated that most resources would likely be free and permissively licensed, with revenue generated from digital and physical cohort experiences.
“Eureka (from Ancient Greek εὕρηκα) represents the exhilarating moment of understanding,” he explained. “Our goal is to ignite those moments in learners’ minds.”
A Generational Gift
Karpathy's announcement has sparked significant excitement, garnering tens of thousands of likes, comments, and reposts on X, with users praising him as a visionary and exceptional educator. Eureka Labs’ X page already boasts nearly 10,000 followers.
"This is going to be incredibly impactful!" exclaimed one user.
Another remarked: “Instead of retreating to an island with his fortune, the man returns to share the flame of wisdom with the next generation.”
Sequoia Capital partner Shaun Maguire commended Karpathy for his “gift for teaching," thanking him for sharing and expanding that gift.
One enthusiastic follower noted, “The most amazing contribution from you, @karpathy, is going to be this. @EurekaLabsAI will be phenomenal. You are truly one of the most selfless individuals.”
A Career Dedicated to AI and Education
Karpathy has had a diverse career, ranging from “YouTube tutorials on Rubik’s cubes” to teaching CS231n at Stanford, a renowned 10-week course on deep learning for computer vision. He also leads an independent course titled “Neural Networks: Zero to Hero,” which teaches how to build neural networks from scratch.
Despite his extensive involvement in academic research, real-world product development, and AGI research, Karpathy viewed these efforts as “side quests” to his primary job. Now, he is eager to fully commit to building something substantial in the education sector.
After co-founding OpenAI in 2016, Karpathy left in 2017 to become the senior director of AI at Tesla, leading the company’s computer vision team. He rejoined OpenAI in 2023, shortly after the transformative launch of ChatGPT, but left again in February, embarking on a freelance journey.
He previously noted on X that his plan was to develop personal projects and see where they led, hinting at his latest endeavors.
Karpathy earned his PhD from Stanford University under AI visionary Fei-Fei Li, focusing on convolutional and recurrent neural networks and their application in computer vision and natural language processing. His passion for the intersection of AI and education is clear: “We look forward to a future where AI is a key technology for enhancing human potential.”
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