Tension emerges between Meta’s AI teams
Discontent between Meta’s AI research teams is growing, according to a report by The Information, at a critical time for Meta’s effort to get back into the AI race.
Long before Mark Zuckerberg pivoted Meta away from its quest for virtual reality to “bring personal superintelligence to everyone,” Meta’s research group FAIR was a powerhouse of important AI research, in addition to working on earlier iterations of the company’s Llama AI models. The group is headed by OG AI legend Yann LeCun, who is a pioneer in neural networks and computer vision.
The FAIR group operates like an academic research lab within Meta, publishing research papers and sharing work with the wider community. But since Meta’s stumble with its Llama 4 AI model, Zuckerberg went on an unprecedented hiring spree of AI all-stars, poaching top researchers from Meta’s competitors to build out a new “Superintelligence team.”
Now, The Information is reporting that there are new tensions between the AI groups, which could have huge ramifications for Meta’s AI research.
Per the report, several changes to how FAIR operates are causing friction. A new layer of review has been imposed on FAIR’s research before publication, and the company has been pressuring the group to direct its work more toward Meta products rather than the wider AI research community.
Adding to this, LeCun appeared to be sidelined when 28-year-old college dropout Alexandr Wang was hired from Scale AI and named chief AI officer. Later, when Meta recruited Shengjia Zhao, the cocreator of ChatGPT, away from OpenAI, Zhao was named “chief scientist of Meta Superintelligence Labs.” Reportedly, the title was given to Zhao to appease him after he threatened to return to OpenAI, going so far as to sign HR paperwork with his former employer.
According to two Information sources, LeCun has discussed with colleagues the possibility of quitting the role. And the nine-figure salaries offered to the Superintelligence team recruits aren’t helping. The rocky start to Meta Superintelligence Labs raises questions about how quickly the new strategy can get Meta back into the AI race.
Bad vibes
Last week, Meta announced “Vibes,” a feed of AI-generated videos that appears in the Meta AI app. But the announcement was quickly dwarfed by the attention from OpenAI’s invite-only Sora app, featuring short videos generated from its new Sora 2 video-generation model, which appears to set a new, high standard for the quality of such technology.
The buzz around Sora is real: it’s now No. 3 on the iOS App Store free apps leaderboard despite being invitation-only, while Meta AI sits at No. 97.
