OpenAI co-founder says he is in a ‘state of psychosis’ — Here's why Andrej Karpathy is nervous about the future

OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy has admitted that he has not written a single line of code since December last year, explaining that he is in a “state of psychosis” trying to understand what all is possible with artificial intelligence.

Karpathy, who worked at Tesla previously as a director, said that not being at the forefront of the AI sector makes him feel nervous despite all his achievements in the field.

Speaking on the No Priors podcast on Friday, Karpathy, the independent AI researcher and founder of Eureka Labs revealed that he was suffering from what he called a “psychosis” at a time when AI agents have added more convenience to his work and home life.

AI founder hasn't written code since December

Andrej Karpathy mentioned that it was in December when he realised how much of a change his life has undergone. He noted during this time, he noticed that he was writing just 20% of his code with 80% delegated to an agent. This was a complete U-turn from earlier, when Karpathy used to write 80% of the code and 20% was delegated to an agent.

“I don’t think I’ve typed like a line of code probably since December, basically, which is an extremely large change,” Karpathy said in the podcast.

This trend has continued.

“I don’t think a normal person actually realises that this happened or how dramatic it was,” he added.

Karpathy added he was not alone in this and the default workflow for building a software has undergone a complete overhaul in the past few months with the exponential rise of agentic AI.

‘State of psychosis’

The OpenAI co-founder noted how OpenClaw has taken over the tech industry as people use it to do various work such as managing calendars, browsing the web, writing emails, reading files, shopping online and even send messages via apps like WhatsApp.

Karpathy acknowledged that the potential remains massive, and described that he was struggling to fully get his head around what may come next.

“I’m just like in the state of psychosis of trying to figure out what’s possible, trying to push it to the limit,” he said.

He admitted that he was nervous because he is not being able to be at the forefront of this AI revolution.

“I want to be at the forefront of it, and I’m very antsy that I’m not at the forefront of it. I see lots of people on Twitter doing all kinds of things, and they all sound like really good ideas. And I need to be at the forefront or I feel extremely nervous,” Karpathy said.

He further revealed that he went through what he called a “claw psychosis” in January while integrating an agent to perform various tasks at home.

His “Dobby the House Elf claw” now controls his home’s sound system, lighting, security functions, shades, HVAC, pool and spa.

“So Dobby is in charge of the house,” Karpathy said. “It’s been really fun to have these macro actions that maintain my house. I haven’t like really pushed it way more beyond that, and I think people are doing a lot more crazy things with it.”

He said that he now just messages Dobby on WhatsApp in natural language to get his work done.