Palmer Luckey’s eyes light up, and he talks a mile a minute, when discussing the company’s recent recruitment event: AI Grand Prix.
This is a drone flying contest with a twist. Instead of humans operating drones, drones should operate autonomously. Humans will be tested on their skills in writing software that causes drones to beat their competitors.
There is a prize of $500,000 that will be distributed among the teams with the highest scores, up to a job at Anduril, and the opportunity to go through the company’s standard recruitment cycle.
“This is what I decided to do,” co-founder Anduril Luckey said in an interview with TechCrunch. Luckey and his team met to discuss recruiting strategy, he recalled.
Someone suggested sponsoring a drone racing tournament, which was somewhat in line with the company’s previous marketing tactics. For example, Anduril sponsors the NASCAR Cup Series races known as 250 on the sensor.
Luckey generally liked the idea, but then said, “‘Guys, it would be a dumb thing to sponsor Anduril. Basically, our whole drive and reason, is the autonomy that eventually progresses to where you don’t have to have people managing each drone,'” he recalled, then added, “‘What we need are programmers and engineers who can make drones well.
After discovering that the show didn’t exist, the company opted to create its own. Interestingly, Luckey pointed out that the team at the AI Grand Prix will not be flying Anduril drones, but ones built by other defense technology startups: Neros technology. According to Luckey, the Anduril drone is too big to operate on the field located in Ohio where the final will be held.
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“We’re talking about teams using Anduril drones, but Anduril doesn’t make high-speed, very small drones that we want for the Drone Racing League. They’re usually bigger,” he said.
Anduril also partnered with one of the established racing leagues, the Drone Champions League to operate the event, as well as JobsOhio. The final race will take place in Ohio (where Anduril’s main manufacturing facility located).
Although Luckey is clearly excited about how fun the event will be, he will not be a racer alone. “I’m definitely going to be there,” he said, but “it’s going to be about who can make the best software for piloting these drones.”
He smiled and said, “I’m not a very good software programmer. I’m more of a hardware guy. I’m an electromechanical and optical guy, and I know enough about coding to glue things together in a way that works for my prototype.”
(Luckey calls Anduril CEO Brian Schimpf “our de facto lead software brain” at the company.)
The founders expect at least 50 teams, and already have interest from several universities, he said. If this competition is a successful event, the plan is to extend it to races with other types of autonomous vehicles.
“We are starting with quadcopter racing drones, which is what people want from racing drones. However, we want, in the future, to apply AI racing to other platforms,” he said.
Underwater AI racing, underground AI racing, maybe even spaceship AI racing are some of the ideas Luckey shared.
The contest is open to all international teams excluding Russia.
“The difference with Russia is that they are actively involved in invading Europe,” he said.
Worryingly, those who are qualified to participate in the race can also work for their country’s military. “I’d love to have everybody, but we’re not the Olympics,” he said.
Luckey said the event followed a lead from the World Cup, which also did not include Russia.
Interestingly, the team from China (home to many autonomous techniques) was accepted, although the country Eagle is the weapon of US autonomy often the name is the biggest fear.
If the Chinese team wins, the project prize in Anduril, which makes weapons used by the US military, will not be given. “If you work in the Chinese military, you won’t be allowed to get a job at Anduril,” Luckey said. Certain laws apply, he said. In fact, there are still several interviews and qualification processes for all job candidates.
The competition will take place in three qualifying rounds starting in April with the final Grand Prix race scheduled for November.