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Andrej Karpathy

What Andrej Karpathy thinks about AI agents

@andrej-karpathy · 69 positions · On ppll ↗

Founding member of OpenAI and former director of AI at Tesla; creator of nanoGPT and the term "vibe coding".

Andrej Karpathy did not write this page.

We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.

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Only Andrej Karpathy on AI agents. See everyone on AI agents

7 dated positions, 2025 to 2026, in their own words. Our reading of what Andrej Karpathy has said — not written or endorsed by them.

  1. Our readingThe apps built to drive smart devices should not exist at all: the devices should expose APIs and agents should call them directly.

    Their wordsthese apps that are on the app store for using these smart home devices, etc. Uh, these shouldn't even exist kind of in a certain sense. Like shouldn't it just be APIs and shouldn't agents be just using it directly?

    ↗Skill Issue: Andrej Karpathy on Code Agents, AutoResearch, and the Loopy Era of AIyoutube.com 4th of 20 in this recording

  3. Our readingSoftware's customer is no longer the human but the agent acting on their behalf, and the whole industry has to be refactored around that.

    Their wordsSo I think the industry just has to reconfigure in so many ways that's like the customer is not the human anymore. It's like agents who are acting on behalf of humans and this refactoring will be will probably be substantial in a certain sense.

    ↗Skill Issue: Andrej Karpathy on Code Agents, AutoResearch, and the Loopy Era of AIyoutube.com 5th of 20 in this recording

  5. Our readingThe goal is not a better prompt but your own absence: arrange it once, hit go, and keep agents running for long stretches without you.

    Their wordsSo the question is how do I refactor all the abstractions so that I'm not I have to arrange it once and hit go. The name of the game is how can you get more agents running for longer periods of time without your involvement doing stuff on your behalf?

    ↗Skill Issue: Andrej Karpathy on Code Agents, AutoResearch, and the Loopy Era of AIyoutube.com 6th of 20 in this recording

  7. Our readingAn agent can understand a maximally simplified explanation and still be unable to come up with it — that gap is what is left of the expert's job.

    neural networks

    Their wordsso for example, micro GPT, like I asked I tried to get an agent to write micro GPT. So, I told it like try to boil down the simplest things. Like try to boil down my um neural network training to the simplest thing and it can't do it.

    ↗Skill Issue: Andrej Karpathy on Code Agents, AutoResearch, and the Loopy Era of AIyoutube.com 20th of 20 in this recording

  8. 9 days earlier

  9. Our readingThe age of the IDE is not over; agents make it bigger, because humans now program at a higher level where the unit of interest is an agent rather than a file.

    Their wordsExpectation: the age of the IDE is over Reality: we’re going to need a bigger IDE (imo). It just looks very different because humans now move upwards and program at a higher level - the basic unit of interest is not one file but one agent. It’s still programming.

    ↗@karpathy on Xx.com

  11. Our readingAgentic organisations will be forkable in a way that classical companies never were.

    Microsoft

    Their wordsYou can’t fork classical orgs (eg Microsoft) but you’ll be able to fork agentic orgs.

    ↗@karpathy on Xx.com

  12. 5 months earlier

  13. Our readingAgents will take a decade rather than a year, because today's models are cognitively lacking in too many independent ways at once.

    Their wordsSo like they don't have enough intelligence. They're not multimodal enough. They can't do computer use and all this kind of stuff. And they don't do a lot of things. You know, they don't have continual learning. You can't just tell them something and they'll remember it. And they're just cognitively lacking. And it's just not working. And I just think that it will take about a decade to work through all of those issues.

    ↗Andrej Karpathy — “We’re summoning ghosts, not building animals”youtube.com 1st of 30 in this recording