Meta was late to the AI party and now itll never beat ChatGPT

Date:
Tue, 20 Jun 2023 14:55:27 +0000

Description:
Zuckerberg's metaverse obsession could mean Meta has already lost the AI arms race.

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Meta the tech titan formerly known as Facebook desperately wants to take pole position at the forefront of AI research, but things arent exactly going to plan.

As reported by Gizmochina , Meta lost a third of its AI research staff in 2022, many of whom cited burnout or lack of faith in the companys leadership as their reasons for departing. An internal survey from earlier this year showed that just 26% of employees expressed confidence in Metas direction as
a business.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg hired French computer scientist and roboticist Yann LeCun to lead Metas AI efforts back in 2013, but in more recent times Meta has visibly struggled to keep up with the rapid pace of AI expansion demonstrated by competing platforms like ChatGPT and Google Bard . LeCun was notably not among the invitees to the White Houses recent Companies at the Frontier of Artificial Intelligence Innovation summit.

Thats not to say that Meta is failing completely in the AI sphere; recent reveals like a powerful AI music creator and a speech-generation tool too dangerous to release to the public show that the Facebook owner isnt exactly sitting on its hands when it comes to AI development. So why is it still lagging behind? Meta's AI 'Voicebox' tool is almost terrifyingly powerful so terrifying, in fact, that Meta isn't releasing it to the public (Image
credit: Meta) Change of direction

The clues in the name: remember back in 2021, when the then-ubiquitous Facebook underwent a total rebrand to become Meta? At the time, it was supposed to herald a new era of technology, led by our reptilian overlord Zuckerberg. Enter the metaverse , he said, where your wildest dreams can come true.

Two years down the line, its become pretty clear that his Ready Player Zuck fantasies arent going to materialize; at least, not for quite a while. AI, on the other hand, really is the new technology frontier but Metas previous obsession with the metaverse has left it on the back foot in the AI gold
rush.

Even though Meta has now shifted to AI as its prime area of investment and
has maintained an AI research department for years, its fair to say that the Facebook owner failed to capitalize on the AI boom late last year. According to Gizmochina, employees have been urging management to shift focus back towards generative AI, which fell by the wayside in favor of the companys metaverse push. Meta commentary Meta's virtual Horizon workspace was never going to take off, let's be honest (Image credit: Meta)

Perhaps Meta is simply spread too thin. Back in February, Zuckerberg
described 2023 as the companys year of efficiency a thin cover for Metas
mass layoffs and project closures back in November 2022, which have seen internal morale fall to an all-time low . Meta is still trying to push ahead in the VR market with products like the Meta Quest Pro , and recently announced it would be releasing a Twitter rival , supposedly called Threads.

In any case, it seems that Meta might have simply missed the boat. ChatGPT
and Microsofts Bing AI are already making huge waves in the wider public sphere, along with the best AI art generators such as Midjourney.

Its hard to see where Metas AI projects will fit in the current lineup; perhaps Zuckerberg should just stick to social media instead. Or maybe we'll see Meta pull another hasty name-change to become 'MetAI' or something
equally ridiculous. The possibilities are endless!



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/news/meta-was-late-to-the-ai-party-and-now-itll-neve r-beat-chatgpt


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