John Carmack moving into artificial general intelligence

Just after receiving his Lifetime Achievement Award at the VR Awards, he's stepping down from his position as Oculus CTO.

The VR Awards recently gave Oculus CTO John Carmack the Lifetime Achievement Award, but it turns out Carmack is actually moving to a Consulting CTO position at Oculus, with his Facebook statement on the matter revealing that he's pivoting into the world of artificial general intelligence (AGI).

He'll still be a part of development for Oculus, but this will be a "modest slice" of his time now, and he feels he has a "non-negligible chance of making a difference" with AGI, hence he's working on it, pursuing his interest from home with his son.

"As for what I am going to be doing with the rest of my time: When I think back over everything I have done across games, aerospace, and VR, I have always felt that I had at least a vague "line of sight" to the solutions, even if they were unconventional or unproven. I have sometimes wondered how I would fare with a problem where the solution really isn't in sight. I decided that I should give it a try before I get too old," he adds.

When he received the award recently, he did mention that he's unhappy with the "pace of progress" for VR, although he has spent six years at Oculus after joining from id Software.

Can Carmack make a difference in AGI?