Oculus Chief Technology Officer John Carmack is stepping down from the position he has held since 2013 to spend time working on artificial intelligence.

Although he won’t have a formal role in the company, Carmack (pictured) will remain somewhat involved, taking on a new position of “consulting CTO” instead. He made the announcement today on Facebook.

Carmack, who before joining Oculus was a co-founder of id Software LLC and is credited as the father of the legendary DOOM and Quake game series, said his new role would only consume a modest slice of his time.

“When I think back over everything I have done across games, aerospace, and VR, I have always felt that I had at least a vague ‘line of sight’ to the solutions, even if they were unconventional or unproven,” Carmack wrote. “I have sometimes wondered how I would fare with a problem where the solution really isn’t in sight. I decided that I should give it a try before I get too old.”

Thus, he added, “I’m going to work on artificial general intelligence.” That’s a type of AI, which doesn’t exist yet and some argue may never happen, that can understand or learning anything a human can.

Oculus owner Facebook Inc. told Variety that Carmack would “pursue a number of projects” in his new role of consulting CTO: “He will continue to advise us on strategy and technical feasibility through building proofs of concept, and as always, advocating for our users.”

While highly regarded in virtual reality, Cormack’s tenure at Oculus has not been without drama. Carmack was named as a defendant in a lawsuit filed by ZeniMax Media Inc., the owner of id Software, in 2016. ZeniMax claimed that Carmack had corresponded with Oculus founder Palmer Luckey early in the development of Oculus Rift, leading to a number of major improvements to the headset, ZeniMax claiming that those improvements involved its intellectual property.

ZeniMax won the case with a $500 million judgment in 2017, but Carmack was not happy, claiming that the expert commentary given during the trial was “ridiculous.” The ruling, which was appealed, was finally settled for an undisclosed sum in December.

Carmack’s departure comes on top of others, including some of the company’s earliest employees. Oculus co-founder Nate Mitchell was the most recent high-profile employee to leave the company, announcing his resignation in August. Co-founder Brendan Iribe quit in October 2018, while Chief Executive Officer Palmer Luckey left the company in March 2017 although it was subsequently revealed that Facebook had pushed him out possibly because of his controversial political views.

Photo: Oculus