It is the wet dream of a social media company to replace the pesky content creators that demand a share of ad revenue with an generative ai model, that pumps out a constant stream of engagement farming slop, so they can keep all the ad revenue for themselves.
Creating a world model ai is a totally different matter, that requires long term commitment.
Yann LeCun to depart Meta and launch AI startup focused on 'world models'
151–160 of 680 posts
Re: Yann LeCun to depart Meta and launch AI startup focused on 'world models'
#152Earlier 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.
I politely disagree - it is exactly an industry researcher's purpose to do the risky things that may not work, simply because the rest of the corporation cannot take such risks but must walk on more well-trodden paths. Corporate R&D teams are there to absorb risk, innovate, disrupt, create new fields, not for doing small incremental improvements. "If we know it works, it's not research." (Albert Einstein) I also agre…
> I also agree with LeCun that LLMs in their current form - are a dead end.
Well then you and he are clearly dead wrong.
Re: Yann LeCun to depart Meta and launch AI startup focused on 'world models'
#153Re: Yann LeCun to depart Meta and launch AI startup focused on 'world models'
#154Making 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.
What does Meta even want with AI? I suppose they could solve superintelligence and cure cancer and build fusion reactors with it, but that's 100% outside their comfort zone - if they manage to build synthethic conversation partners and synthethic content generators as good or better than the real thing the value of having every other human on the planet registered to one of their social network goes to zero. Which is…
At 1.6T market cap it's very hard to 10x or greater the company anymore doing what's in their comfort zone and they've got a lot of money to play with to find easier to grow opportunities. If Zuckerberg was convinced he could do that by selling toothpicks they'd have a go at the toothpick business. They went after the "metaverse" first, then AI. Both are just very fast growth options which happen to be tech focused because that's the only way you generate new comparable value as a company (unless you're sitting on a lot of state owned oil) in the current markets.
Re: Yann LeCun to depart Meta and launch AI startup focused on 'world models'
#155Making 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.
LeCun is great and smart, of course. But he had his chance. It didn't go that well. Now Zuck wants somebody else to try. Messi is the best footballer of our era. It doesn't mean he would play well in any team.
I don't think Messi could do it on a wet night in Stoke.
Ronaldo could, though.
/s
Re: Yann LeCun to depart Meta and launch AI startup focused on 'world models'
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
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/
For the same reason I don't attribute those successes to Zuckerberg I don't attribute them to LeCun either.
Re: Yann LeCun to depart Meta and launch AI startup focused on 'world models'
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would pose a question differently, under his leadership did Meta achieve good outcome? If the answer is yes, then better to keep him, because he has already proved himself and you can win in the long-term. With Meta's pockets, you can always create a new department specifically for short-term projects. If the answer is no, then nothing to discuss here.
Meta did exactly that, kept him but reduced his scope. Did the broader research community benefit from his research? Absolutely. But did Meta achieve a good outcome? Probably not. If you follow LeCun on social media, you can see that the way FAIR’s results are assessed is very narrow-minded and still follows the academic mindset. He mentioned that his research is evaluated by: "Research evaluation is a difficult task…
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Re: Yann LeCun to depart Meta and launch AI startup focused on 'world models'
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
He is also not very interested in LLMs, and that seems to be Zuck's top priority.
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.
>the huge impact they're already having
In the software development world yes, outside of that, virtually none. Yes, you can transcribe a video call in Office, yes, but that's not ground breaking. I dare you to list 10 impacts on different fields, excluding tech and including at least half blue collar fields and at least half white collar fields , at different levels from the lowest to the highest in the company hierarchy, that LLM/Diffusion models are having. Impact here specifically means a significant reduction of costs or a significant increase of revenue. Go on
Re: Yann LeCun to depart Meta and launch AI startup focused on 'world models'
#159Making 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.
Zuckerberg knows what he wants but he rarely knows how to get it. That's been his problem all along. Unlike others he isn't scared to throw ridiculous amounts of money at a problem though and buy companies who do things he can't get done himself.
There's also the aspect of control - because of how the shares and ownership are organized he answers essentially to no one. In other companies burning this much cash as was with VR or now AI without any sensible results would get him ejected a long time ago.
Re: Yann LeCun to depart Meta and launch AI startup focused on 'world models'
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
I politely disagree - it is exactly an industry researcher's purpose to do the risky things that may not work, simply because the rest of the corporation cannot take such risks but must walk on more well-trodden paths. Corporate R&D teams are there to absorb risk, innovate, disrupt, create new fields, not for doing small incremental improvements. "If we know it works, it's not research." (Albert Einstein) I also agre…
> I also agree with LeCun that LLMs in their current form - are a dead end. Well then you and he are clearly dead wrong.
Either that, or just tautological, given that LLM tech is continually morphing and improving.