Meta’s FAIR is “dying a slow death”, the Fortune reported
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According to former employees, Meta’s FAIR is “dying a slow death”, the Fortune reported.
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The Fortune notes that more than half of the 14 authors of the original Llama research paper published in 2023 left the company six months later while at least eight top researchers have left over the past year.
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Two of the departing researchers went on to found Mistral AI, which is now valued at $6 billion.
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Yann LeCun who is currently leading FAIR temporarily as the company searches for Pineau’s replacement, calls it a “new dawn” in the company.
“It’s more like a new beginning in which FAIR is refocusing on the ambitious and long-term goal of what we call AMI (advanced machine intelligence),” LeCun said.
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The former employees pointed out that fundamental research within Big tech companies have slowed and that FAIR now gets less computing power for its projects than the Gen AI team.
Assessment
I agree with the insiders that it’s natural for the company to shift focus from the fundamental research to consumer-facing AI products given that AI developments in the industry is rapidly changing. However, it’s not good to see the founding Llama researchers leaving the company. This change in strategy could explain why Joelle Pineau, the head of FAIR recently left the company.