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LEAD: Minimizing Learner-Expert Asymmetry in End-to-End Driving
Research  ·  June 26, 2026 No More Shortcuts: Closed-Loop Driving Without Target Point Bias

For years the target point bias was an open secret in the CARLA end-to-end driving community: the best driving policies scored well in part by steering toward the next GPS waypoint rather than by understanding the traffic and road layout around them. CARLA, the most established simulator for autonomous driving, has long served as the initial proving ground where new self-driving ideas are validated before the industry takes them up. However, the target point, which is intended as a proxy for a coarse GPS-based navigation system in the simulator, is in practice implemented as a precise coordinate along the lane center and provided as an input signal to end-to-end driving policies, enabling shortcut learning.

Co-founders of KE:SAI: Kashyap Chitta, Daniel Dauner, Andreas Geiger, Bernhard Schölkopf, Bernhard Jaeger
Press Release  ·  May 20, 2026 Kyutai and ELLIS Tübingen launch KE:SAI: A Premier Franco-German Partnership for Open Science in Physical AI

Kyutai and ELLIS Tübingen announce the official launch of KE:SAI – Kyutai ELLIS Scalable Autonomous Intelligence. KE:SAI is a non-profit open science research laboratory dedicated to the next frontier of artificial intelligence: systems that can understand and act in the real world. KE:SAI brings together two of Europe’s most prominent AI brands to address the fundamental challenges of world models and physical AI. Founded in Paris in 2023, Kyutai has emerged as one of Europe’s leading AI laboratories, with a focus on breakthrough research with immediate and lasting impact, and a team driven by a shared commitment to openness and excellence.