
上周,,Meta人工智能研究部門負(fù)責(zé)人喬爾·皮諾(Joelle Pineau)宣布離職,,許多人不禁好奇,,皮諾過去兩年一直領(lǐng)導(dǎo)且于2017年加入的Meta旗下著名基礎(chǔ)人工智能研究實(shí)驗(yàn)室(FAIR)究竟發(fā)生了什么,。
皮諾的辭職時(shí)機(jī)令人費(fèi)解,。就在她宣布離職數(shù)日后,Meta在一個(gè)不同尋常的周末推出了Llama 4模型,,結(jié)果卻引發(fā)了爭(zhēng)議,。新模型因被認(rèn)為發(fā)布倉促、缺乏透明度,、可能夸大性能指標(biāo),,以及有跡象表明Meta未能跟上像中國(guó)的深度求索(DeepSeek)這樣的開源人工智能競(jìng)爭(zhēng)對(duì)手的步伐,而遭到研究界的批評(píng),。這一切都發(fā)生在人工智能模型市場(chǎng)競(jìng)爭(zhēng)趨于白熱化之際,,而Meta計(jì)劃今年投入高達(dá)650億美元用于人工智能基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施建設(shè)。
FAIR是“基礎(chǔ)人工智能研究”(Fundamental AI Research)的英文首字母縮寫,,曾是Meta在人工智能開發(fā)領(lǐng)域的璀璨明珠,。但在過去兩年里,隨著馬克·扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)將公司發(fā)展重心轉(zhuǎn)向生成式人工智能產(chǎn)品,,這個(gè)備受贊譽(yù)的實(shí)驗(yàn)室在公司內(nèi)部逐漸被邊緣化,,愈發(fā)被公司內(nèi)部更注重商業(yè)化應(yīng)用的人工智能團(tuán)隊(duì)搶去了風(fēng)頭。例如,,最新推出的Llama模型是Meta獨(dú)立的生成式人工智能團(tuán)隊(duì)(GenAI團(tuán)隊(duì))研發(fā)的,,而非FAIR的成果。與此同時(shí),,F(xiàn)AIR逐漸衰落,,許多優(yōu)秀的研究人員跳槽到了競(jìng)爭(zhēng)對(duì)手公司和初創(chuàng)企業(yè):2023年2月發(fā)布的最初Llama研究論文的14位作者中,,超過半數(shù)在六個(gè)月后離開了公司,而在過去一年里,,至少有八位頂尖研究人員離職,。
據(jù)一位上周接受《財(cái)富》雜志采訪的前Meta員工稱,該實(shí)驗(yàn)室正緩慢走向“消亡”,,此觀點(diǎn)與其他前FAIR團(tuán)隊(duì)成員的看法不謀而合,。從這個(gè)角度來看,皮諾的離職可以被視為該實(shí)驗(yàn)室的垂死掙扎,。
Meta首席人工智能科學(xué)家楊立昆被認(rèn)為是深度學(xué)習(xí)領(lǐng)域的“教父”之一,,也是FAIR的創(chuàng)始人。在Meta從外部尋找接替皮諾的人選期間(皮諾將留任至5月),,他目前正臨時(shí)領(lǐng)導(dǎo)該團(tuán)隊(duì),。他否認(rèn)FAIR正在走向消亡,在給《財(cái)富》雜志的電子郵件中表示:“這絕非FAIR的終結(jié),?!毕喾矗麍?jiān)稱該實(shí)驗(yàn)室即將迎來全新發(fā)展契機(jī),,生成式人工智能產(chǎn)品團(tuán)隊(duì)的存在實(shí)際上使FAIR能夠重新專注于更長(zhǎng)期的人工智能研究,。
楊立昆表示:“這更像是一個(gè)全新的開端,在這個(gè)階段,,F(xiàn)AIR正重新聚焦于我們所說的高級(jí)機(jī)器智能(AMI)這一雄心勃勃的長(zhǎng)期目標(biāo),。”這位64歲的法裔計(jì)算機(jī)科學(xué)家長(zhǎng)期以來一直認(rèn)為,,通用人工智能(AGI)這一術(shù)語具有誤導(dǎo)性,,并創(chuàng)造了“高級(jí)機(jī)器智能(AMI)”這個(gè)術(shù)語,。他表示,,這一概念旨在助力機(jī)器像動(dòng)物和人類一樣高效地理解世界、進(jìn)行推理,、制定計(jì)劃和學(xué)習(xí),。他也曾公開表示,對(duì)當(dāng)前基于大語言模型(LLM)的人工智能方法能否達(dá)到人類智能水平持懷疑態(tài)度,。
皮諾也給《財(cái)富》雜志發(fā)來了一份聲明,,稱自己“對(duì)Meta整體人工智能工作和戰(zhàn)略仍滿懷熱忱”。她表示,,Meta仍然大力支持探索性研究,,并將FAIR作為公司內(nèi)一個(gè)獨(dú)立機(jī)構(gòu),但“對(duì)我個(gè)人而言,,當(dāng)下正是重新調(diào)整精力的合適時(shí)機(jī),,然后再投入到全新的挑戰(zhàn)中”,。
然而,《財(cái)富》雜志上周采訪了七位前Meta員工,,其中部分受訪者因未被授權(quán)談?wù)撉肮椭鞫竽涿?。許多前員工(包括前FAIR研究人員)表示,近年來,,隨著大型科技公司內(nèi)部“藍(lán)天”研究(即旨在探索新知識(shí),,不一定專注于即時(shí)實(shí)際應(yīng)用或商業(yè)收益的基礎(chǔ)研究)放緩,F(xiàn)AIR正經(jīng)歷緩慢卻不可逆轉(zhuǎn)的衰落過程,。他們還表示,,與專注于生成式人工智能的團(tuán)隊(duì)相比,F(xiàn)AIR開展的項(xiàng)目能獲得的算力資源更少——不過Meta既未證實(shí)也未否認(rèn)這一點(diǎn),,僅在一份聲明中表示,,公司不會(huì)就算力資源分配事宜發(fā)表評(píng)論。
FAIR十多年來一直在進(jìn)行基礎(chǔ)人工智能研究
FAIR由扎克伯格和楊立昆于2013年12月創(chuàng)立,,其崇高的使命宣言是通過開放研究推動(dòng)“人工智能領(lǐng)域前沿發(fā)展,,造福全人類”。FAIR在人工智能研究領(lǐng)域開展基礎(chǔ)性工作,,為從計(jì)算機(jī)視覺,、自然語言處理到機(jī)器人技術(shù)等領(lǐng)域的未來進(jìn)步奠定了基礎(chǔ)。FAIR的許多創(chuàng)新成果最終確實(shí)助力Meta改進(jìn)了其產(chǎn)品,,從在社交媒體上標(biāo)記朋友照片,,到輔助審核極端主義和仇恨言論內(nèi)容。

據(jù)《金融時(shí)報(bào)》報(bào)道,,目前FAIR擁有約1000名員工。該機(jī)構(gòu)最初在加利福尼亞州門洛帕克的臉書(Facebook)總部,、倫敦和曼哈頓設(shè)有辦公地點(diǎn),,2015年擴(kuò)展到巴黎,并在西雅圖,、匹茲堡,、特拉維夫和蒙特利爾設(shè)立了規(guī)模較小的衛(wèi)星實(shí)驗(yàn)室。
但到了2022年,,Meta將FAIR團(tuán)隊(duì)并入了現(xiàn)實(shí)實(shí)驗(yàn)室(Reality Labs)——該部門專注于為所謂的元宇宙開發(fā)增強(qiáng)現(xiàn)實(shí)和虛擬現(xiàn)實(shí)技術(shù)——這導(dǎo)致許多FAIR研究人員離職,。盡管這一變動(dòng)看似讓FAIR的地位有所下降,但其在2023年重新成為焦點(diǎn),,在Meta被視為在生成式人工智能領(lǐng)域令人矚目的卷土重來大戲中發(fā)揮了核心作用,。
2022年11月下旬,當(dāng)OpenAI推出ChatGPT時(shí),,人們認(rèn)為Meta在生成式人工智能領(lǐng)域遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)落后于OpenAI,、Anthropic和谷歌,。但FAIR通過開發(fā)出首個(gè)能與其他公司推出的模型相抗衡的免費(fèi)生成式人工智能模型,助力Meta重回賽道,。這款模型被稱為L(zhǎng)lama[名字巧妙地運(yùn)用了大語言模型(LLM)的英文首字母縮寫,,而大語言模型正是驅(qū)動(dòng)ChatGPT等創(chuàng)新成果的人工智能類型],一經(jīng)推出便在人工智能領(lǐng)域引起了轟動(dòng),。
繼首個(gè)Llama模型之后,,F(xiàn)AIR在2023年7月迅速推出了Llama 2。它的發(fā)布掀起了開源大語言模型的開發(fā)熱潮,,并使Meta成為大語言模型領(lǐng)域的有力競(jìng)爭(zhēng)者,。然而,到了當(dāng)年9月,,問題出現(xiàn)了:The Information報(bào)道稱,,由于FAIR與Meta內(nèi)部另一個(gè)研究團(tuán)隊(duì)圍繞算力資源展開激烈爭(zhēng)奪,許多最初參與Llama研發(fā)的FAIR研究人員離職,,而那個(gè)競(jìng)爭(zhēng)團(tuán)隊(duì)當(dāng)時(shí)正在研發(fā)一款后來被公司放棄的競(jìng)爭(zhēng)模型,。兩名離職的研究人員后來創(chuàng)立了Mistral AI,這是一家目前估值達(dá)60億美元的法國(guó)初創(chuàng)公司,;Llama的作者之一,、FAIR的研究主管阿爾芒·茹蘭(Armand Joulin)則跳槽到了蘋果公司。
數(shù)月后的2024年1月,,F(xiàn)AIR再次進(jìn)行了重組,。隨著生成式人工智能熱潮的加速,以及Meta加大了與OpenAI,、谷歌和埃隆·馬斯克(Elon Musk)的xAI等公司競(jìng)爭(zhēng)的力度,,F(xiàn)AIR與由艾哈邁德·阿爾·達(dá)赫勒(Ahmad Al-Dahle)領(lǐng)導(dǎo)的Meta生成式人工智能產(chǎn)品團(tuán)隊(duì)(GenAI團(tuán)隊(duì))合并為一個(gè)團(tuán)隊(duì),一位前FAIR負(fù)責(zé)人稱此舉為“沉重打擊”,。
這一打擊也與Llama的研發(fā)工作有關(guān):上周末發(fā)布的Llama 4是由Meta的生成式人工智能產(chǎn)品團(tuán)隊(duì)主導(dǎo)的,,由生成式人工智能副總裁艾哈邁德·阿爾·達(dá)赫勒領(lǐng)導(dǎo)。皮諾和FAIR開發(fā)了最初的Llama模型和Llama 2,。但在那之后,,新成立的,、由Meta副總裁馬諾哈爾·帕盧里(Manohar Paluri)帶領(lǐng)的生成式人工智能團(tuán)隊(duì)中的一個(gè)小組,,接手了Llama的研發(fā)工作,使FAIR基本上被邊緣化,。
前員工稱Meta已不再將探索性人工智能研究列為優(yōu)先事項(xiàng)
自FAIR并入產(chǎn)品團(tuán)隊(duì)以來,,前員工們表示,Meta逐步降低FAIR所擅長(zhǎng)的開放式,、探索性研究的優(yōu)先級(jí),,轉(zhuǎn)而將資源投向生成式人工智能團(tuán)隊(duì)主導(dǎo)的以產(chǎn)品為導(dǎo)向的項(xiàng)目,。
一位在2023年離職并創(chuàng)辦初創(chuàng)公司的前FAIR研究人員表示:“說實(shí)話,這讓我非常難過,。大約在2019年,,F(xiàn)AIR可謂如日中天,那是個(gè)極其獨(dú)特的地方,?!彼€補(bǔ)充說,他認(rèn)為Meta首席執(zhí)行官馬克·扎克伯格“目前顯然更重視生成式人工智能而非FAIR”,。

另一位在2021年離職的前FAIR研究人員回憶說,F(xiàn)AIR歷來對(duì)探索人工智能各個(gè)細(xì)分領(lǐng)域的項(xiàng)目更為開放,,而生成式人工智能只是其中之一,。他說:“過去,你在FAIR向經(jīng)理提出一個(gè)項(xiàng)目構(gòu)想,,然后便能著手開展,。你可以說,‘我想從事機(jī)器人領(lǐng)域的研究’,,‘我想從事計(jì)算機(jī)視覺方面的工作’,,‘我想從事語音識(shí)別研究’……而且極為重視團(tuán)協(xié)作?!?/p>
如今,,他表示,他看到FAIR以及微軟,、谷歌等其他公司的人工智能研究實(shí)驗(yàn)室,,對(duì)學(xué)術(shù)思維模式的支持力度正呈現(xiàn)出日益削弱的態(tài)勢(shì)?!斑@是整個(gè)行業(yè)都在發(fā)生的事,,”他說,“越來越多的人被迫轉(zhuǎn)向生成式人工智能領(lǐng)域,?!崩纾雀鑼⑵鋬蓚€(gè)人工智能研究機(jī)構(gòu)——DeepMind和谷歌大腦(Google Brain)合并成了一個(gè)名為谷歌DeepMind的單一實(shí)體,,現(xiàn)在該實(shí)體更專注于助力開發(fā)谷歌的Gemini人工智能模型,,而不是像之前那樣致力于基礎(chǔ)人工智能研究。
Meta在給《財(cái)富》雜志的書面評(píng)論中表示,,公司對(duì)FAIR的承諾堅(jiān)定不移,。該公司寫道:“我們的戰(zhàn)略和計(jì)劃不會(huì)因近期的事態(tài)發(fā)展而改變,我們?nèi)灾铝τ谠谌斯ぶ悄苎芯款I(lǐng)域保持領(lǐng)先地位。我們的FAIR和生成式人工智能團(tuán)隊(duì)緊密合作,,這種協(xié)同模式不僅優(yōu)化了團(tuán)隊(duì)間的溝通協(xié)調(diào),,還大幅提升了決策效率。我們對(duì)未來的新機(jī)遇滿懷期待,,其中包括FAIR將繼續(xù)專注于高級(jí)機(jī)器智能研究,,這將使我們能夠?qū)崿F(xiàn)雄心勃勃的長(zhǎng)期研究目標(biāo)?!?/p>
但前員工們表示,,F(xiàn)AIR無疑已今非昔比,且這種變化并非朝著好的方向發(fā)展,。其中一位受訪者表示,,如今,一切工作都圍繞著構(gòu)建人工智能驅(qū)動(dòng)的產(chǎn)品展開,,不再聚焦于通過研究來推動(dòng)人工智能領(lǐng)域的進(jìn)步,。他還補(bǔ)充道,扎克伯格關(guān)注的并非研究本身,,而是人工智能對(duì)Meta盈利的貢獻(xiàn),。
一些前FAIR研究人員認(rèn)為注重產(chǎn)品是自然趨勢(shì)
Lightning AI的創(chuàng)始人兼首席執(zhí)行官威廉·法爾肯(William Falcon)曾于2019年在FAIR開展部分博士研究工作。雖然他對(duì)FAIR那段輝煌歲月滿懷眷戀,,但對(duì)于在人工智能產(chǎn)品快速發(fā)展的時(shí)代,,F(xiàn)AIR作為“藍(lán)天”研究實(shí)驗(yàn)室的未來,他有著清醒的認(rèn)識(shí),。
他說:“你能夠像大學(xué)教授一樣做研究,,擁有更多的算力資源,還能享受優(yōu)渥的高薪待遇,?!比欢脖硎?,那本質(zhì)上是一段“蜜月期”,,回歸產(chǎn)品開發(fā)是“自然的演變”。
埃里克-梅耶爾(Erik Meijer)是前Meta工程師和研究員,,他所在的團(tuán)隊(duì)于2022年遭遇裁員,。他表示自己“從來都不看好”像Meta這類公司內(nèi)部的研究部門。
他說:“如果企業(yè)有意開展基礎(chǔ)研究,,理應(yīng)毫無附加條件地為大學(xué)提供資金支持,。工業(yè)實(shí)驗(yàn)室應(yīng)當(dāng)與產(chǎn)品團(tuán)隊(duì)緊密合作,通過生產(chǎn)與研究之間的緊密反饋循環(huán)機(jī)制,,打造未來創(chuàng)新成果的輸送渠道,?!?/p>
他言辭坦率地表示:“要是FAIR就此消失,,我認(rèn)為并無不妥,,而且Meta正像谷歌的一句名言所說的那樣,‘把更多的資源集中在更少的目標(biāo)上’,?!彼峒暗模乔肮雀枋紫瘓?zhí)行官拉里·佩奇(Larry Page)曾用以闡述谷歌將資源聚焦于少數(shù)核心項(xiàng)目這一戰(zhàn)略時(shí)所說的話,。
一位前FAIR研究人員強(qiáng)調(diào),,他認(rèn)為FAIR不會(huì)消失。
談及當(dāng)前整個(gè)人工智能行業(yè)對(duì)產(chǎn)品的關(guān)注,,他指出:“這是一個(gè)循環(huán)過程,。”他也坦言,,這種狀況或許會(huì)令研究人員感到失落,。“當(dāng)下正處于開發(fā)利用階段,,不過探索階段很快就會(huì)再度回歸,,這便是這些公司依然保留‘藍(lán)天’團(tuán)隊(duì)的原因?!彼f道,,“誠(chéng)如楊立昆所言,此刻或許正是重新開始的絕佳時(shí)機(jī),,如此一來,,他們便能為迎接下一波創(chuàng)新浪潮做好充分準(zhǔn)備?!?/p>
FAIR能否重現(xiàn)昔日輝煌仍有待觀察,。目前,Meta在給《財(cái)富》雜志的一份聲明中表示,,首席產(chǎn)品官克里斯·考克斯(Chris Cox),、楊立昆和皮諾(她將在Meta留任至5月)“已在著手尋找(領(lǐng)導(dǎo)FAIR的)繼任者,并期待繼續(xù)推進(jìn)我們?cè)谌斯ぶ悄苎芯糠矫娴墓ぷ鳌薄?/p>
然而,,在同一份聲明中,,Meta再次強(qiáng)調(diào)了對(duì)產(chǎn)品的關(guān)注。聲明稱,,F(xiàn)AIR的長(zhǎng)期研究目標(biāo)“最終將助力我們打造出最優(yōu)質(zhì)的產(chǎn)品,,增加諸如推理、規(guī)劃,、編碼等更全面的功能,。這些功能將催生全新的實(shí)用形式,推動(dòng)我們朝著提供類人體驗(yàn)的目標(biāo)更進(jìn)一步”。
無論FAIR的命運(yùn)如何,,該研究實(shí)驗(yàn)室坎坷的發(fā)展歷程在某種程度上與OpenAI有相似之處,。OpenAI于2015年作為一個(gè)非營(yíng)利性研究實(shí)驗(yàn)室成立,而在2022年推出ChatGPT并成功將其打造成為史上增長(zhǎng)最快的消費(fèi)應(yīng)用程序后,,如今正努力實(shí)現(xiàn)從非營(yíng)利性機(jī)構(gòu)向營(yíng)利性公司的轉(zhuǎn)型,。
當(dāng)然,在ChatGPT之前獲得這一稱號(hào)的應(yīng)用程序是……臉書,。扎克伯格迫切渴望重新奪回這一榮耀,。這也是他專注于為當(dāng)今商業(yè)市場(chǎng)打造人工智能產(chǎn)品的原因之一,同時(shí)解釋了為何FAIR在Meta的生成式人工智能部門面前仍將持續(xù)屈居次要地位,。當(dāng)然,,楊立昆的能力不容小覷。只要他還在Meta工作——而且倘若他秉持的觀點(diǎn)正確,,即實(shí)現(xiàn)人類智能水平,,需要探尋一條與當(dāng)下大語言模型截然不同的技術(shù)路徑——那么FAIR極有可能成為實(shí)現(xiàn)這一突破的實(shí)驗(yàn)室。不過,,就目前而言,,F(xiàn)AIR的輝煌時(shí)代已然落幕。(財(cái)富中文網(wǎng))
譯者:中慧言-王芳
上周,,Meta人工智能研究部門負(fù)責(zé)人喬爾·皮諾(Joelle Pineau)宣布離職,,許多人不禁好奇,皮諾過去兩年一直領(lǐng)導(dǎo)且于2017年加入的Meta旗下著名基礎(chǔ)人工智能研究實(shí)驗(yàn)室(FAIR)究竟發(fā)生了什么,。
皮諾的辭職時(shí)機(jī)令人費(fèi)解,。就在她宣布離職數(shù)日后,Meta在一個(gè)不同尋常的周末推出了Llama 4模型,,結(jié)果卻引發(fā)了爭(zhēng)議,。新模型因被認(rèn)為發(fā)布倉促、缺乏透明度,、可能夸大性能指標(biāo),,以及有跡象表明Meta未能跟上像中國(guó)的深度求索(DeepSeek)這樣的開源人工智能競(jìng)爭(zhēng)對(duì)手的步伐,而遭到研究界的批評(píng),。這一切都發(fā)生在人工智能模型市場(chǎng)競(jìng)爭(zhēng)趨于白熱化之際,,而Meta計(jì)劃今年投入高達(dá)650億美元用于人工智能基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施建設(shè)。
FAIR是“基礎(chǔ)人工智能研究”(Fundamental AI Research)的英文首字母縮寫,,曾是Meta在人工智能開發(fā)領(lǐng)域的璀璨明珠,。但在過去兩年里,隨著馬克·扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)將公司發(fā)展重心轉(zhuǎn)向生成式人工智能產(chǎn)品,,這個(gè)備受贊譽(yù)的實(shí)驗(yàn)室在公司內(nèi)部逐漸被邊緣化,,愈發(fā)被公司內(nèi)部更注重商業(yè)化應(yīng)用的人工智能團(tuán)隊(duì)搶去了風(fēng)頭,。例如,最新推出的Llama模型是Meta獨(dú)立的生成式人工智能團(tuán)隊(duì)(GenAI團(tuán)隊(duì))研發(fā)的,,而非FAIR的成果,。與此同時(shí),F(xiàn)AIR逐漸衰落,,許多優(yōu)秀的研究人員跳槽到了競(jìng)爭(zhēng)對(duì)手公司和初創(chuàng)企業(yè):2023年2月發(fā)布的最初Llama研究論文的14位作者中,,超過半數(shù)在六個(gè)月后離開了公司,,而在過去一年里,,至少有八位頂尖研究人員離職。
據(jù)一位上周接受《財(cái)富》雜志采訪的前Meta員工稱,,該實(shí)驗(yàn)室正緩慢走向“消亡”,,此觀點(diǎn)與其他前FAIR團(tuán)隊(duì)成員的看法不謀而合。從這個(gè)角度來看,,皮諾的離職可以被視為該實(shí)驗(yàn)室的垂死掙扎,。
Meta首席人工智能科學(xué)家楊立昆被認(rèn)為是深度學(xué)習(xí)領(lǐng)域的“教父”之一,也是FAIR的創(chuàng)始人,。在Meta從外部尋找接替皮諾的人選期間(皮諾將留任至5月),,他目前正臨時(shí)領(lǐng)導(dǎo)該團(tuán)隊(duì)。他否認(rèn)FAIR正在走向消亡,,在給《財(cái)富》雜志的電子郵件中表示:“這絕非FAIR的終結(jié),。”相反,,他堅(jiān)稱該實(shí)驗(yàn)室即將迎來全新發(fā)展契機(jī),,生成式人工智能產(chǎn)品團(tuán)隊(duì)的存在實(shí)際上使FAIR能夠重新專注于更長(zhǎng)期的人工智能研究。
楊立昆表示:“這更像是一個(gè)全新的開端,,在這個(gè)階段,,F(xiàn)AIR正重新聚焦于我們所說的高級(jí)機(jī)器智能(AMI)這一雄心勃勃的長(zhǎng)期目標(biāo)?!边@位64歲的法裔計(jì)算機(jī)科學(xué)家長(zhǎng)期以來一直認(rèn)為,,通用人工智能(AGI)這一術(shù)語具有誤導(dǎo)性,并創(chuàng)造了“高級(jí)機(jī)器智能(AMI)”這個(gè)術(shù)語,。他表示,,這一概念旨在助力機(jī)器像動(dòng)物和人類一樣高效地理解世界、進(jìn)行推理,、制定計(jì)劃和學(xué)習(xí),。他也曾公開表示,對(duì)當(dāng)前基于大語言模型(LLM)的人工智能方法能否達(dá)到人類智能水平持懷疑態(tài)度,。
皮諾也給《財(cái)富》雜志發(fā)來了一份聲明,,稱自己“對(duì)Meta整體人工智能工作和戰(zhàn)略仍滿懷熱忱”,。她表示,Meta仍然大力支持探索性研究,,并將FAIR作為公司內(nèi)一個(gè)獨(dú)立機(jī)構(gòu),,但“對(duì)我個(gè)人而言,當(dāng)下正是重新調(diào)整精力的合適時(shí)機(jī),,然后再投入到全新的挑戰(zhàn)中”,。
然而,《財(cái)富》雜志上周采訪了七位前Meta員工,,其中部分受訪者因未被授權(quán)談?wù)撉肮椭鞫竽涿?。許多前員工(包括前FAIR研究人員)表示,近年來,,隨著大型科技公司內(nèi)部“藍(lán)天”研究(即旨在探索新知識(shí),,不一定專注于即時(shí)實(shí)際應(yīng)用或商業(yè)收益的基礎(chǔ)研究)放緩,F(xiàn)AIR正經(jīng)歷緩慢卻不可逆轉(zhuǎn)的衰落過程,。他們還表示,,與專注于生成式人工智能的團(tuán)隊(duì)相比,F(xiàn)AIR開展的項(xiàng)目能獲得的算力資源更少——不過Meta既未證實(shí)也未否認(rèn)這一點(diǎn),,僅在一份聲明中表示,,公司不會(huì)就算力資源分配事宜發(fā)表評(píng)論。
FAIR十多年來一直在進(jìn)行基礎(chǔ)人工智能研究
FAIR由扎克伯格和楊立昆于2013年12月創(chuàng)立,,其崇高的使命宣言是通過開放研究推動(dòng)“人工智能領(lǐng)域前沿發(fā)展,,造福全人類”。FAIR在人工智能研究領(lǐng)域開展基礎(chǔ)性工作,,為從計(jì)算機(jī)視覺,、自然語言處理到機(jī)器人技術(shù)等領(lǐng)域的未來進(jìn)步奠定了基礎(chǔ)。FAIR的許多創(chuàng)新成果最終確實(shí)助力Meta改進(jìn)了其產(chǎn)品,,從在社交媒體上標(biāo)記朋友照片,,到輔助審核極端主義和仇恨言論內(nèi)容。
據(jù)《金融時(shí)報(bào)》報(bào)道,,目前FAIR擁有約1000名員工,。該機(jī)構(gòu)最初在加利福尼亞州門洛帕克的臉書(Facebook)總部、倫敦和曼哈頓設(shè)有辦公地點(diǎn),,2015年擴(kuò)展到巴黎,,并在西雅圖、匹茲堡,、特拉維夫和蒙特利爾設(shè)立了規(guī)模較小的衛(wèi)星實(shí)驗(yàn)室,。
但到了2022年,Meta將FAIR團(tuán)隊(duì)并入了現(xiàn)實(shí)實(shí)驗(yàn)室(Reality Labs)——該部門專注于為所謂的元宇宙開發(fā)增強(qiáng)現(xiàn)實(shí)和虛擬現(xiàn)實(shí)技術(shù)——這導(dǎo)致許多FAIR研究人員離職,。盡管這一變動(dòng)看似讓FAIR的地位有所下降,,但其在2023年重新成為焦點(diǎn),,在Meta被視為在生成式人工智能領(lǐng)域令人矚目的卷土重來大戲中發(fā)揮了核心作用。
2022年11月下旬,,當(dāng)OpenAI推出ChatGPT時(shí),,人們認(rèn)為Meta在生成式人工智能領(lǐng)域遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)落后于OpenAI、Anthropic和谷歌,。但FAIR通過開發(fā)出首個(gè)能與其他公司推出的模型相抗衡的免費(fèi)生成式人工智能模型,,助力Meta重回賽道。這款模型被稱為L(zhǎng)lama[名字巧妙地運(yùn)用了大語言模型(LLM)的英文首字母縮寫,,而大語言模型正是驅(qū)動(dòng)ChatGPT等創(chuàng)新成果的人工智能類型],,一經(jīng)推出便在人工智能領(lǐng)域引起了轟動(dòng)。
繼首個(gè)Llama模型之后,,F(xiàn)AIR在2023年7月迅速推出了Llama 2,。它的發(fā)布掀起了開源大語言模型的開發(fā)熱潮,,并使Meta成為大語言模型領(lǐng)域的有力競(jìng)爭(zhēng)者,。然而,到了當(dāng)年9月,,問題出現(xiàn)了:The Information報(bào)道稱,,由于FAIR與Meta內(nèi)部另一個(gè)研究團(tuán)隊(duì)圍繞算力資源展開激烈爭(zhēng)奪,許多最初參與Llama研發(fā)的FAIR研究人員離職,,而那個(gè)競(jìng)爭(zhēng)團(tuán)隊(duì)當(dāng)時(shí)正在研發(fā)一款后來被公司放棄的競(jìng)爭(zhēng)模型,。兩名離職的研究人員后來創(chuàng)立了Mistral AI,這是一家目前估值達(dá)60億美元的法國(guó)初創(chuàng)公司,;Llama的作者之一,、FAIR的研究主管阿爾芒·茹蘭(Armand Joulin)則跳槽到了蘋果公司。
數(shù)月后的2024年1月,,F(xiàn)AIR再次進(jìn)行了重組,。隨著生成式人工智能熱潮的加速,以及Meta加大了與OpenAI,、谷歌和埃隆·馬斯克(Elon Musk)的xAI等公司競(jìng)爭(zhēng)的力度,,F(xiàn)AIR與由艾哈邁德·阿爾·達(dá)赫勒(Ahmad Al-Dahle)領(lǐng)導(dǎo)的Meta生成式人工智能產(chǎn)品團(tuán)隊(duì)(GenAI團(tuán)隊(duì))合并為一個(gè)團(tuán)隊(duì),一位前FAIR負(fù)責(zé)人稱此舉為“沉重打擊”,。
這一打擊也與Llama的研發(fā)工作有關(guān):上周末發(fā)布的Llama 4是由Meta的生成式人工智能產(chǎn)品團(tuán)隊(duì)主導(dǎo)的,,由生成式人工智能副總裁艾哈邁德·阿爾·達(dá)赫勒領(lǐng)導(dǎo)。皮諾和FAIR開發(fā)了最初的Llama模型和Llama 2,。但在那之后,,新成立的、由Meta副總裁馬諾哈爾·帕盧里(Manohar Paluri)帶領(lǐng)的生成式人工智能團(tuán)隊(duì)中的一個(gè)小組,,接手了Llama的研發(fā)工作,,使FAIR基本上被邊緣化,。
前員工稱Meta已不再將探索性人工智能研究列為優(yōu)先事項(xiàng)
自FAIR并入產(chǎn)品團(tuán)隊(duì)以來,前員工們表示,,Meta逐步降低FAIR所擅長(zhǎng)的開放式,、探索性研究的優(yōu)先級(jí),轉(zhuǎn)而將資源投向生成式人工智能團(tuán)隊(duì)主導(dǎo)的以產(chǎn)品為導(dǎo)向的項(xiàng)目,。
一位在2023年離職并創(chuàng)辦初創(chuàng)公司的前FAIR研究人員表示:“說實(shí)話,,這讓我非常難過。大約在2019年,,F(xiàn)AIR可謂如日中天,,那是個(gè)極其獨(dú)特的地方?!彼€補(bǔ)充說,,他認(rèn)為Meta首席執(zhí)行官馬克·扎克伯格“目前顯然更重視生成式人工智能而非FAIR”。
另一位在2021年離職的前FAIR研究人員回憶說,,F(xiàn)AIR歷來對(duì)探索人工智能各個(gè)細(xì)分領(lǐng)域的項(xiàng)目更為開放,,而生成式人工智能只是其中之一。他說:“過去,,你在FAIR向經(jīng)理提出一個(gè)項(xiàng)目構(gòu)想,,然后便能著手開展。你可以說,,‘我想從事機(jī)器人領(lǐng)域的研究’,,‘我想從事計(jì)算機(jī)視覺方面的工作’,‘我想從事語音識(shí)別研究’……而且極為重視團(tuán)協(xié)作,?!?/p>
如今,他表示,,他看到FAIR以及微軟,、谷歌等其他公司的人工智能研究實(shí)驗(yàn)室,對(duì)學(xué)術(shù)思維模式的支持力度正呈現(xiàn)出日益削弱的態(tài)勢(shì),?!斑@是整個(gè)行業(yè)都在發(fā)生的事,”他說,,“越來越多的人被迫轉(zhuǎn)向生成式人工智能領(lǐng)域,。”例如,,谷歌將其兩個(gè)人工智能研究機(jī)構(gòu)——DeepMind和谷歌大腦(Google Brain)合并成了一個(gè)名為谷歌DeepMind的單一實(shí)體,,現(xiàn)在該實(shí)體更專注于助力開發(fā)谷歌的Gemini人工智能模型,而不是像之前那樣致力于基礎(chǔ)人工智能研究,。
Meta在給《財(cái)富》雜志的書面評(píng)論中表示,,公司對(duì)FAIR的承諾堅(jiān)定不移,。該公司寫道:“我們的戰(zhàn)略和計(jì)劃不會(huì)因近期的事態(tài)發(fā)展而改變,我們?nèi)灾铝τ谠谌斯ぶ悄苎芯款I(lǐng)域保持領(lǐng)先地位,。我們的FAIR和生成式人工智能團(tuán)隊(duì)緊密合作,,這種協(xié)同模式不僅優(yōu)化了團(tuán)隊(duì)間的溝通協(xié)調(diào),還大幅提升了決策效率,。我們對(duì)未來的新機(jī)遇滿懷期待,,其中包括FAIR將繼續(xù)專注于高級(jí)機(jī)器智能研究,這將使我們能夠?qū)崿F(xiàn)雄心勃勃的長(zhǎng)期研究目標(biāo),?!?/p>
但前員工們表示,F(xiàn)AIR無疑已今非昔比,,且這種變化并非朝著好的方向發(fā)展,。其中一位受訪者表示,如今,,一切工作都圍繞著構(gòu)建人工智能驅(qū)動(dòng)的產(chǎn)品展開,,不再聚焦于通過研究來推動(dòng)人工智能領(lǐng)域的進(jìn)步。他還補(bǔ)充道,,扎克伯格關(guān)注的并非研究本身,,而是人工智能對(duì)Meta盈利的貢獻(xiàn)。
一些前FAIR研究人員認(rèn)為注重產(chǎn)品是自然趨勢(shì)
Lightning AI的創(chuàng)始人兼首席執(zhí)行官威廉·法爾肯(William Falcon)曾于2019年在FAIR開展部分博士研究工作,。雖然他對(duì)FAIR那段輝煌歲月滿懷眷戀,但對(duì)于在人工智能產(chǎn)品快速發(fā)展的時(shí)代,,F(xiàn)AIR作為“藍(lán)天”研究實(shí)驗(yàn)室的未來,,他有著清醒的認(rèn)識(shí)。
他說:“你能夠像大學(xué)教授一樣做研究,,擁有更多的算力資源,,還能享受優(yōu)渥的高薪待遇?!比欢?,他也表示,那本質(zhì)上是一段“蜜月期”,,回歸產(chǎn)品開發(fā)是“自然的演變”,。
埃里克-梅耶爾(Erik Meijer)是前Meta工程師和研究員,他所在的團(tuán)隊(duì)于2022年遭遇裁員,。他表示自己“從來都不看好”像Meta這類公司內(nèi)部的研究部門,。
他說:“如果企業(yè)有意開展基礎(chǔ)研究,理應(yīng)毫無附加條件地為大學(xué)提供資金支持,。工業(yè)實(shí)驗(yàn)室應(yīng)當(dāng)與產(chǎn)品團(tuán)隊(duì)緊密合作,,通過生產(chǎn)與研究之間的緊密反饋循環(huán)機(jī)制,,打造未來創(chuàng)新成果的輸送渠道?!?/p>
他言辭坦率地表示:“要是FAIR就此消失,,我認(rèn)為并無不妥,而且Meta正像谷歌的一句名言所說的那樣,,‘把更多的資源集中在更少的目標(biāo)上’,。”他所提及的,,正是前谷歌首席執(zhí)行官拉里·佩奇(Larry Page)曾用以闡述谷歌將資源聚焦于少數(shù)核心項(xiàng)目這一戰(zhàn)略時(shí)所說的話,。
一位前FAIR研究人員強(qiáng)調(diào),他認(rèn)為FAIR不會(huì)消失,。
談及當(dāng)前整個(gè)人工智能行業(yè)對(duì)產(chǎn)品的關(guān)注,,他指出:“這是一個(gè)循環(huán)過程?!彼蔡寡?,這種狀況或許會(huì)令研究人員感到失落?!爱?dāng)下正處于開發(fā)利用階段,,不過探索階段很快就會(huì)再度回歸,這便是這些公司依然保留‘藍(lán)天’團(tuán)隊(duì)的原因,?!彼f道,“誠(chéng)如楊立昆所言,,此刻或許正是重新開始的絕佳時(shí)機(jī),,如此一來,他們便能為迎接下一波創(chuàng)新浪潮做好充分準(zhǔn)備,?!?/p>
FAIR能否重現(xiàn)昔日輝煌仍有待觀察。目前,,Meta在給《財(cái)富》雜志的一份聲明中表示,,首席產(chǎn)品官克里斯·考克斯(Chris Cox)、楊立昆和皮諾(她將在Meta留任至5月)“已在著手尋找(領(lǐng)導(dǎo)FAIR的)繼任者,,并期待繼續(xù)推進(jìn)我們?cè)谌斯ぶ悄苎芯糠矫娴墓ぷ鳌薄?/p>
然而,,在同一份聲明中,Meta再次強(qiáng)調(diào)了對(duì)產(chǎn)品的關(guān)注,。聲明稱,,F(xiàn)AIR的長(zhǎng)期研究目標(biāo)“最終將助力我們打造出最優(yōu)質(zhì)的產(chǎn)品,增加諸如推理、規(guī)劃,、編碼等更全面的功能,。這些功能將催生全新的實(shí)用形式,推動(dòng)我們朝著提供類人體驗(yàn)的目標(biāo)更進(jìn)一步”,。
無論FAIR的命運(yùn)如何,,該研究實(shí)驗(yàn)室坎坷的發(fā)展歷程在某種程度上與OpenAI有相似之處。OpenAI于2015年作為一個(gè)非營(yíng)利性研究實(shí)驗(yàn)室成立,,而在2022年推出ChatGPT并成功將其打造成為史上增長(zhǎng)最快的消費(fèi)應(yīng)用程序后,,如今正努力實(shí)現(xiàn)從非營(yíng)利性機(jī)構(gòu)向營(yíng)利性公司的轉(zhuǎn)型。
當(dāng)然,,在ChatGPT之前獲得這一稱號(hào)的應(yīng)用程序是……臉書,。扎克伯格迫切渴望重新奪回這一榮耀。這也是他專注于為當(dāng)今商業(yè)市場(chǎng)打造人工智能產(chǎn)品的原因之一,,同時(shí)解釋了為何FAIR在Meta的生成式人工智能部門面前仍將持續(xù)屈居次要地位,。當(dāng)然,楊立昆的能力不容小覷,。只要他還在Meta工作——而且倘若他秉持的觀點(diǎn)正確,,即實(shí)現(xiàn)人類智能水平,需要探尋一條與當(dāng)下大語言模型截然不同的技術(shù)路徑——那么FAIR極有可能成為實(shí)現(xiàn)這一突破的實(shí)驗(yàn)室,。不過,,就目前而言,F(xiàn)AIR的輝煌時(shí)代已然落幕,。(財(cái)富中文網(wǎng))
譯者:中慧言-王芳
When Meta’s head of AI research, Joelle Pineau, announced her departure last week, many wondered what was going on with FAIR, the famed Meta AI lab Pineau had led for the past two years and joined in 2017.
The timing of Pineau’s resignation raised eyebrows. It came just days before an unusual weekend rollout of Meta’s Llama 4 models that wound up being surrounded by controversy. The new models drew criticism from the research community over a perceived rushed release, lack of transparency, possibly inflated performance metrics, and indications that Meta was failing to keep pace with open-source AI rivals like China’s DeepSeek. It all comes at a time of intense competition in the AI model market, with Meta planning to spend up to $65 billion this year on AI infrastructure.
FAIR—an acronym for Fundamental AI Research—was once the crown jewel of AI development at Meta. But as Mark Zuckerberg has pivoted the company toward generative AI products over the past two years, the vaunted lab has become something of an orphan inside the organization, increasingly shoved out of the limelight by more commercially focused AI groups within the company. The newest Llama model, for instance, was the product of Meta’s separate GenAI team, not FAIR. Meanwhile, FAIR has languished, with talented researchers departing for rival companies and startups: More than half of the 14 authors of the original Llama research paper published in February 2023 had left the company six months later, while at least eight top researchers have left over the past year.
The lab has been “dying a slow death,” according to one former Meta employee who spoke to Fortune over the past week, echoing a sentiment from other ex–FAIR team members. Pineau’s departure, in this view, can be interpreted as the lab’s death rattle.
Yann LeCun, Meta’s chief AI scientist, who is considered one of the “godfathers” of deep learning and who founded FAIR, is now leading the team temporarily as Meta does an external search to replace Pineau (who is staying on until May). He denies FAIR is fading into oblivion, telling Fortune by email that “this is most definitely not the death of FAIR.” To the contrary, he insists the lab is about to experience a new dawn, and the existence of the GenAI product group actually enables FAIR to refocus on longer-term AI research.
“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. The 64-year-old French-born computer scientist has long argued that the term artificial general intelligence (AGI) is misleading, and coined the term AMI, which he says is about helping machines understand the world, reason, plan, and learn as efficiently as animals and humans. He also has gone on record as skeptical that current LLM-based approaches to AI will ever get to human-level intelligence.
Pineau also sent Fortune a statement, saying that she ”continues to be very enthusiastic about Meta’s overall AI work and strategy.” There continues to be strong support for exploratory research and FAIR as a distinct organization in Meta, she said, but “the time was simply right for me personally to refocus my energy before jumping into a new adventure.”
However, Fortune spoke over the past week with seven former Meta employees, some of whom requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about their former employer. Many of the employees, who include ex–FAIR researchers, say the organization has been slowly but surely withering in recent years as “blue sky” research (that is, fundamental research that seeks new knowledge without necessarily focusing on immediate practical applications or commercial gains) within Big Tech companies has slowed. FAIR also gets access to less computing power for its projects than the teams focused on generative AI, they say—though Meta would not confirm or deny that, saying in a statement that it does not comment on compute allocation.
FAIR has done foundational AI research work for over a decade
Founded in December 2013 by Zuckerberg and LeCun, the lofty mission statement for FAIR was advancing “the state of the art in artificial intelligence through open research for the benefit of all.” FAIR has done foundational work in AI research that laid the groundwork for future advances in everything from computer vision and natural language processing to robotics. Many of FAIR’s innovations did wind up helping Meta with its products, from tagging friends’ photos on social media to helping moderate content for extremism and hate speech.
FAIR, which now boasts around 1,000 employees according to the Financial Times, began with locations at Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., London, and Manhattan, expanding in 2015 to Paris and adding smaller satellite labs in Seattle, Pittsburgh, Tel Aviv, and Montreal.
But by 2022, Meta had folded the FAIR team into Reality Labs—the division focused on augmented and virtual reality technologies for the so-called metaverse—prompting many FAIR researchers to leave. Despite this seeming demotion, FAIR was back in the spotlight in 2023, playing a central role in what was seen as Meta’s remarkable comeback in generative AI.
When OpenAI’s ChatGPT launched in late November 2022, Meta was perceived as having fallen far behind OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google in generative AI. But FAIR helped get Meta back in the game by developing the first freely available generative AI model that could rival the models being offered by those other companies. It was called Llama—a play on the acronym for large language models, or LLMs, the type of AI that powered innovations like ChatGPT—and it took the AI world by storm.
FAIR quickly followed up the first Llama model with Llama 2 in July 2023. Its release sparked a wave of open-source LLM development and positioned Meta as a serious contender in the LLM space. By September of that year though, trouble was afoot: The Information reported that many of the original FAIR researchers who worked on Llama had left over an internal battle over computing resources with another Meta research team working on a rival model that the company ultimately abandoned. Two of the departing researchers went on to found Mistral AI, a French startup now valued at $6 billion; Armand Joulin, a Llama author and a research director at FAIR, decamped to Apple.
A few months later, in January 2024, FAIR was once again restructured. As the generative AI boom accelerated and Meta ramped up efforts to compete with companies including OpenAI, Google, and Elon Musk’s xAI, FAIR and Meta’s generative AI product team under Ahmad Al-Dahle, called GenAI, were consolidated into a single group, which a former FAIR leader described as a “blow.”
That blow related to the work on Llama, as well: The Llama 4 release last weekend was led by Meta’s GenAI product organization, with VP of generative AI Ahmad Al-Dahle at the helm. Pineau and FAIR had developed the original Llama model and Llama 2. But after that, a team within the newly launched GenAI organization led by Meta VP Manohar Paluri took over the Llama work, leaving FAIR mostly on the sidelines.
Ex-employees say Meta has deprioritized exploratory AI research
Since the consolidation of FAIR into the product organization, ex-employees say Meta has steadily deprioritized the kind of open-ended, exploratory research that FAIR was known for, shifting resources instead toward product-driven initiatives under GenAI.
“To be honest, it makes me really sad,” said one former FAIR researcher who left in 2023 to found a startup. “FAIR at its peak circa 2019 was a very special place.” He added that he thinks Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg “clearly values GenAI over FAIR at this point.”
Another former FAIR researcher, who left in 2021, recalled that FAIR had traditionally been more open to projects that explored a wide range of AI subfields—of which generative AI was just one. “It used to be a place where you could pitch a project to your manager and just do it,” he said. “You could say, ‘I want to work in robotics,’ ‘I want to work in computer vision,’ ‘I want to work in speech recognition’ … and it was very collaborative, too.”
Now, he said, he sees FAIR, along with the AI research labs at other companies like Microsoft and Google, becoming less supportive of an academic mindset. “This is happening industrywide,” he said. “More and more people are being forced to move into generative AI.” Google, for example, merged its two AI research organizations, DeepMind and Google Brain, into a single entity called Google DeepMind that is now more focused on helping produce Google’s Gemini AI models than pursuing foundational AI research as the two labs were previously.
In written comments to Fortune, Meta said its commitment to FAIR remains strong. “Our strategy and plans will not change as a result of recent developments, and we remain dedicated to leading AI research,” the company wrote. “Our FAIR and GenAI teams work closely together and allow for better coordination across teams [and] faster decision-making. We’re excited about the new opportunities ahead, which includes FAIR’s continued focus on advanced machine intelligence (AMI), which will enable us to tackle ambitious long-term research goals.”
But the former employees say FAIR has undoubtedly changed, and not for the better. Today, rather than research-focused technologies to advance the AI field, everything is channeled into building AI-powered products, one said, adding that Zuckerberg is not research-focused but focused on the promise of AI to Meta’s bottom line.
Some former FAIR researchers say a product focus is natural
William Falcon, founder and CEO of Lightning AI, did some of his PhD research while at FAIR in 2019. While he feels nostalgic for FAIR’s storied past, he is realistic about its future as a blue-sky research lab in an era of rapid AI product development.
“You could do what you do as a professor with a lot more compute and [were] paid a lot of money,” he said. However, he also said that was essentially a “honeymoon period” and that it’s a “natural evolution” to get back to product building.
Erik Meijer, a former Meta engineer and researcher whose team was laid off in 2022, said that he was “never a fan” of research divisions inside companies like Meta.
“If companies want to do fundamental research, they should give money with no strings attached to universities,” he said. “Industrial labs should work closely with the product teams to create a pipeline of future innovations via a tight feedback loop between production and research.”
To be blunt, he said, “I think it is great if FAIR disappears and that Meta is putting, to borrow a Google saying, ‘More wood behind fewer arrows.’” He was referring to former Google CEO Larry Page’s use of the expression to describe the company’s strategy of focusing its resources on a small number of core projects.
One of the former FAIR researchers emphasized that he did not believe FAIR would disappear.
“It’s a cycle,” he said of the current product focus across the AI industry, which he acknowledged could be frustrating for researchers. “It’s time for exploitation, but exploration will come back very soon, that’s why these companies keep their blue-sky team,” he said. “As Yann says, it’s probably the perfect timing to start fresh, so they are prepared to be on top of the next wave of innovations.”
It remains to be seen whether FAIR can ever reclaim its former glory. For now, Meta told Fortune in a statement, chief product officer Chris Cox, LeCun, and Pineau (who remains at Meta until May) are “already working to find a successor [to lead FAIR] and look forward to continuing our work in AI research.”
Yet, the same statement doubled down on Meta’s product focus, saying that FAIR’s long-term research goals “will ultimately allow us to build our best products, adding more comprehensive capabilities like reasoning, planning, and coding that will enable new forms of utility and bring us much closer to delivering human-level experiences.”
No matter FAIR’s fate, the research lab’s winding trajectory somewhat mirrors that of OpenAI, which was founded as a nonprofit research lab in 2015, and is now working to transition to a for-profit company after seeing ChatGPT become the fastest-growing consumer application in history since its launch in 2022.
Of course, the app that held that title prior to ChatGPT was … Facebook. Zuckerberg would love to reclaim that mantle. It’s one of the reasons he’s laser-focused on building AI products for today’s commercial market and why FAIR will continue to play second fiddle to Meta’s GenAI division. One shouldn’t count LeCun out, of course. As long as he remains at Meta—and if he’s right that human-level AI will require a fundamentally different approach than today’s LLMs—then FAIR might just be the lab that delivers that breakthrough. For now, however, FAIR’s glory days are over.