Takuma Seno

Career Background

At my previous job, I joined Sony AI as a new graduate and worked on the Gran Turismo Sophy project. I was involved in R&D of a reinforcement learning agent capable of defeating world-class players in the PlayStation racing game Gran Turismo. We published our research in the scientific journal Nature and deployed the agent in the actual game, achieving the first-ever productization of a deep reinforcement learning agent in a consumer game.

While working at Sony AI, I also earned my PhD from Keio University as a working professional. During my doctoral program, I researched semi-parametric deep reinforcement learning algorithms and developed d3rlpy, an offline reinforcement learning library selected for the MITOU IT Human Resources Discovery and Development Program.

Why I Joined Turing

I believe I pushed the boundaries of reinforcement learning in the digital world at my previous job. I also felt that people, including myself, were no longer surprised by achievements confined to digital environments. While searching for opportunities to apply reinforcement learning to the real world, I encountered Turing. Having previously worked with racing games, I had always dreamed of controlling real vehicles with RL technology. I joined with the conviction that there is no challenge more exciting than autonomous driving.

What I Do

RL Team Lead
Development of closed-loop simulators using 3DGS
Development of distributed reinforcement learning infrastructure
Training reinforcement learning agents
Public road driving experiments with RL agents

What Makes My Work Rewarding

Taking on challenges no one in Japan has attempted before
Competing head-on with formidable global players
Tackling unknown challenges through trial and error
Driving real vehicles on public roads using reinforcement learning

About the Work Environment at Turing

Working alongside talented colleagues on technical challenges is a genuinely enjoyable environment for engineers and researchers.
Turing secures an exceptionally large amount of compute resources per person, making it invaluable for running numerous large-scale training jobs.
There are many problems with no obvious solutions, and the company culture of just going for it is fantastic.

Who Thrives at Turing

People who enjoy taking on unknown challenges
People who want to stay at the cutting edge of technology
People who feel the romance of making hardware move in the real world

For Those Considering Turing

E2E autonomous driving is not only a fascinating technical challenge but also a domain with tremendous social impact. Few fields allow you to aim for technical excellence while directly contributing to society. We will continue to face many problems with no obvious solutions, but for those who enjoy working through such challenges together, there is no better place. Please feel free to drop by. Once you see our development vehicles in person, you will truly appreciate how exciting our work is.

My Car

Honda Accord e:HEV

A Honda employee friend gave me a tour of the Honda Museum, and I was captivated by the Honda brand. I was a paper driver until joining Turing, so the Accord’s rich advanced features have been a great help.