Shares in Meta Platforms (META) held up today despite its main AI ‘godfather’ deciding to quit the business.
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Chief Scientist Leaves
Meta’s chief AI scientist Yann LeCun confirmed media reports from earlier this month that he is leaving to set up his own start-up venture.
In a series of posts on Threads, LeCun thanked Meta’s founder Mark Zuckerberg and said that its Fundamental AI Research (FAIR) lab was his “proudest non-technical accomplishment”.
“As many of you have heard through rumours or recent media articles, I am planning to leave Meta after 12 years,” he wrote. “The impact of FAIR on the company, on the field of AI, on the tech community, and on the wider world has been spectacular.”
LeCun is a winner of the Turing Award, which is dubbed the ‘Nobel Prize of Computing’, and considered a godfather of modern AI.
In recent months it appears that LeCun has been somewhat sidelined as Meta looks to ramp up its AI offerings and better compete with rivals such as Alphabet-owned Google (GOOGL) and OpenAI.
As can be seen above, its Reality Labs, which looks at the future of computing, is struggling to make headway.
AI Should Learn Virtually
Zuckerberg has looked to focus on rolling out AI models more rapidly than before, thus pivoting away from LeCun’s Fair.
It is understood that LeCun believes that the models sought by Zuckerberg won’t be able to plan and reason like humans. Instead he wants to focus on so-called world models where machines are powered by human-level intelligence.
This trains AI models by using visual learning rather than inputting vast amounts of data. This could be the focus of his new venture.
But LeCun will not be cutting all his ties with Meta, suggesting that it would be a partner of his new firm.
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