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A godfather of modern artificial intelligence, scientist Yann LeCun (65) has stepped away from the global tech company, Meta. LeCun stated in a LinkedIn post that he plans to create the next wave of AI startup innovation, which researchers have described as world models. He is known for ‘deep learning.’ He is a French-American computer scientist working in the fields of machine learning, mobile robotics, and computational neuroscience. His departure from Meta has raised important questions: Why did LeCun leave Meta? And what does this mean for the AI industry?

The reason for LeCun’s exit from Meta

Reports show that LeCun often criticized the growing trend of corporate confidentiality around model development. For the first time, he is stepping into an entrepreneurial role.

LeCun’s focus on his startups

LeCun’s startups could attempt to build world-model-based AI systems, energy-efficient, and multimodal learning systems. His startups might build fully open-source model frameworks and community-driven AI training ecosystems. LeCun’s expect innovations are in robotics, autonomous systems, and self-supervised learning for enterprise automation.

LeCun’s new ventures aim to build AI models beyond the scale-focused approach used by meta, OpenAI, or Google. It also aims to bring ‘science-first-innovation’ to the startup world. His ambition is to build AI systems that understand the world more like humans. Empowering smaller teams could participate in AI innovation more effectively.

Role of LeCun in Meta

LeCun has been essential to Meta’s AI vision for nearly a decade. He worked in convolutional neural networks and self-supervised learning that helped power Meta’s AI ecosystem, from computer vision tools to advanced large language models. He always pushed for open science, open research, and democratizing AI.

Why Meta might be unhappy

LeCun was a powerful creator of ideas, helping Meta maintain leadership in fundamental AI research. Meta could take fright at his departure. LeCun’s startups could become competitors in enterprise AI tools and rivals to Llama. Meta’s influence in AI policy and foundational architecture development may weaken as LeCun builds his own ecosystem outside the corporate world.

Impact on the global AI startup landscape

Top AI researchers may follow LeCun into the startup world across Europe, the USA, India, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.

The future of AI 

AI will plan and understand context. Models will interact with the real world, not just text.

LeCun’s departure from Meta marks the beginning of a new chapter in AI history.