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Yann LeCun to depart Meta and launch AI startup focused on 'world models'

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Re: Yann LeCun to depart Meta and launch AI startup focused on 'world models'

#61

Post by yanhangyhy »

lmm wrote: post #27
yanhangyhy wrote: post #19

What the hell does Mark see in Wang? Wang was born into a family whose parents got Chinese government scholarships to study abroad but secretly stayed in the US, and then the guy turns super anti-China. From any angle, this dude just doesn't seem reliable at all.

> Wang was born into a family whose parents got Chinese government scholarships to study abroad but secretly stayed in the US, and then the guy turns super anti-China. All I'm hearing is he's a smart guy from a smart family?

he is very smart. but Mark is not. Ever since Wang joined Meta, way too many big-name AI scientists have bounced because of him. US AI companies have at least half their researchers being Chinese, and now they've stuck this ultimate anti-China hardliner in charge—I just don't get what the hell Meta's up to(And even a lot of times, it ends up affecting non-Chinese scientists too.). Being anti-China? Fine, whatever, but don't let it tank your own business and products first.

Re: Yann LeCun to depart Meta and launch AI startup focused on 'world models'

#62

Post by throwaw12 »

beambot wrote: post #4

Will be interesting to see how he fares outside the ample resources of Meta: Personnel, capital, infrastructure, data, etc. Startups have a lot of flexibility, but a lot of additional moving parts. Good luck!

I would love to join his startup, if he hires me, and there are many such people like me, and more talented.

Re: Yann LeCun to depart Meta and launch AI startup focused on 'world models'

#64

Post by qsort »

tedsanders wrote: post #36
consumer451 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can anyone explain to me the non-$$ logic for one working towards AGI, aside from misanthropy? The only other thing I can imagine is not very charitable: intellectual greed. It can't just be that, can it? I genuinely don't understand. I would love to be educated.

I'm working toward AGI. I hope AGI can be used to automate work and make life easier for people.

>> non-$$ logic [...] aside from misanthropy

> I hope AGI can be used to automate work

You people need a PR guy, I'm serious. OpenAI is the first company I've ever seen that comes across as actively trying to be misanthropic in its messaging. I'm probably too old-fashioned, but this honestly sounds like Marlboro launching the slogan "lung cancer for the weak of mind".

Re: Yann LeCun to depart Meta and launch AI startup focused on 'world models'

#65

Post by xuancanh »

sebmellen wrote: post #2

Making LeCun report to Wang was the most boneheaded move imaginable. But… I suppose Zuckerberg knows what he wants, which is AI slopware and not truly groundbreaking foundation models.

In industry research, someone in a chief position like LeCun should know how to balance long-term research with short-term projects. However, for whatever reason, he consistently shows hostility toward LLMs and engineering projects, even though Llama and PyTorch are two of the most influential projects from Meta AI. His attitude doesn’t really match what is expected from a Chief position at a product company like Facebook. When Llama 4 got criticized, he distanced himself from the project, stating that he only leads FAIR and that the project falls under a different organization. That kind of attitude doesn’t seem suitable for the face of AI at the company. It's not a surprise that Zuck tried to demote him.

Re: Yann LeCun to depart Meta and launch AI startup focused on 'world models'

#66

Post by MrScruff »

fastball wrote: post #53
fxtentacle wrote: post #25

Working under LeCun but outside of Zuckerberg's sphere of influence sure sounds like a dream job.

Really? From where I'm standing LeCun is a pompous researcher who had early success in his career, and has been capitalizing on that ever since. Have you read any of his papers from the last 20 years? 90% of his citations are to his own previous papers. From there, he missed the boat on LLMs and is now pretending everyone else is wrong so that he can feel better about it.

His research group have introduced some pretty impactful research and open source models.

https://ai.meta.com/research/

Re: Yann LeCun to depart Meta and launch AI startup focused on 'world models'

#67

Post by eloisant »

consumer451 wrote: post #24
killerstorm wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LeCun always said that LLMs do not lead to AGI.

Can anyone explain to me the non-$$ logic for one working towards AGI, aside from misanthropy? The only other thing I can imagine is not very charitable: intellectual greed. It can't just be that, can it? I genuinely don't understand. I would love to be educated.

That's the old dream of creating life, becoming God. Like the Golem, Frankenstein...

Re: Yann LeCun to depart Meta and launch AI startup focused on 'world models'

#68

Post by yogrish »

fxtentacle wrote: post #37
tinco wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I think LeCun is underestimating the impact that LLM's and Diffusion models are going to have, even considering the huge impact they're already having. That's no problem as I'm sure whatever LeCun is working on is going to be amazing as well, but an enterprise like Facebook can't have their top researcher work on risky things when there's surefire paths to success still available.

LLMs and Diffusion solve a completely different problem than world models. If you want to predict future text, you use an LLM. If you want to predict future frames in a video, you go with Diffusion. But what both of them lack is object permanence. If a car isn't visible in the input frame, it won't be visible in the output. But in the real world, there are A LOT of things that are invisible (image) or not mentioned b…

I think World models is way to go for Super Intelligence. One of teh patent i saw already going in this direction for Autonomous mobility is https://patents.google.com/patent/EP4379577A1 where synthetic data generation (visualization) is missing step in terms of our human intelligence.

Re: Yann LeCun to depart Meta and launch AI startup focused on 'world models'

#70

Post by monkeydust »

He needs a patient investor and realized Zuck is not that. As someone who delivers product and works a lot with researchers I get the constant tension that might exist with competing priorities. Very curious to see how he does, imho the outcome will be either of the extremes - one of the fastest growing companies by valuation ever or a total flop. Either way this move might advance us to whatever end state we are heading towards with AI.
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