Apple has moved its self-driving car unit under the leadership of top artificial intelligence executive John Giannandrea, after Bob Mansfield has retired (for good this time). Giannandrea will oversee the company’s continued work on autonomous vehicle systems that could eventually be used in its own car.
Apple Car as per Richard ScarryThe project, known as Titan, is run day-to-day by Doug Field. His team of hundreds of engineers have moved to Giannandrea’s artificial intelligence and machine-learning group, according to people familiar with the change.
Previously, Field reported to Bob Mansfield, Apple’s former senior vice president of hardware engineering. Mansfield has now fully retired from Apple, leading to Giannandrea taking over… Mansfield initially retired from Apple in 2012, only to return for less than a year as its senior vice president in charge of chip technology. Mansfield stepped down from that role in 2013 and then remained as a part-time consultant…
In 2017, Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook told Bloomberg that the autonomous systems effort was the “mother of all AI projects” and “a core technology that we view as very important.” He also described it as “probably one of the most difficult AI projects to work on.”
MacDailyNews Take: Congrats to Mansfield on his retirement! Project Titan, Apple’s autonomous vehicle systems program, sounds like it remains in very capable hands.
Bob Mansfield for President_2020
Seems as if Project Titan has many step parents, a changing vision, and perhaps a confused, Microsoftian road ahead.