Meta's struggle to hold on to top AI talent, as highlighted by recent departures from the company, sheds light on Zuckerberg's aspirations in the artificial intelligence realm.
In a rapidly evolving landscape of artificial intelligence (AI), Meta is making significant moves to bolster its AI capabilities. The tech giant, formerly known as Facebook, has announced a restructure of its AI division, focusing on research, product, and infrastructure.
The restructure involves a change in strategy and includes a hiring freeze. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the creation of Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL) to compete with industry leaders like OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft. MSL will include a smaller team of AI researchers called TBD Lab, which aims to achieve superintelligence.
However, the restructure has seen several employees depart from Meta's AI division. Notably, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, claimed that Meta was poaching OpenAI's staffers with signing bonuses of up to $100 million. This assertion comes amidst reports of Meta offering multimillion-dollar deals to attract AI talent from competitors, with Microsoft being a notable player.
Prominent AI researchers who worked in Meta’s Superintelligence Labs and TBD Lab have left the company, including Chi-Hao Wu, Ethan Knight, Avi Verma, Rishabh Agarwal, Shengjia Zhao, Rohan Varma, and Chaya Nayak. Some of these researchers have returned to competitors like OpenAI, contributing to the ongoing talent war in the AI industry.
The departures were driven by frequent restructurings, a dynamic work environment, and offers from startups with high salaries. The dynamic work environment and the restructuring have also led to the departure of Ethan Knight, who recently departed from Meta's new AI division, just a month after joining.
Meta's MSL Infra team will focus on bolstering AI research efforts and production by building advanced infrastructure, optimising GPU clusters, data infrastructure, and developer tools to support research. Meanwhile, Meta's Products & Applied Research team will transition the company's product-focused research efforts closer to product development. The team will include staffers who previously worked on Meta's Assistant, Voice, Media, Trust, Embodiment, and Developer pillars in AI Tech.
Additionally, Meta has announced the establishment of a Fundamental AI Research lab to help integrate and scale many of the company's research ideas and projects.
The news of Meta's AI focus and the subsequent restructure comes following the acquisition of Scale AI, a company specialising in data labeling, model evaluation, and software development for AI, for $14.3 billion. Scale AI's CEO, Alexandr Wang, was hired to lead Meta's AI operations.
Superintelligence, a type of AI system that surpasses humans in overall intelligence, remains a significant goal for Meta and its competitors in the AI industry. The ongoing talent war and the strategic moves by Meta indicate a competitive and exciting future for AI development.
