Yann LeCun Exits Meta to Pioneer 'Advanced Machine Intelligence' with New World Models Startup

In a seismic shift across the artificial intelligence landscape, renowned AI pioneer and Turing Award laureate, Yann LeCun, has confirmed his departure from his role as Chief AI Scientist at Meta (formerly Facebook).

LeCun, a foundational figure in modern AI and co-creator of the company's vaunted Fundamental AI Research (FAIR) lab, is leaving the tech giant to launch his own startup. This new venture will be exclusively dedicated to realizing what he calls Advanced Machine Intelligence (AMI), marking a major pivot away from the industry's current focus on Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT.

LeCun's new company will champion a different path to human-level intelligence, centered on developing "world models," AI systems designed to deeply understand the physical world and not just text-based data.

This move follows LeCun's long-standing public skepticism that current LLMs alone can lead to truly intelligent, human-level AI. His departure comes amid an internal strategic shift at Meta, which has increasingly prioritized commercially-focused "superintelligence" initiatives and LLM-centric research to compete with rivals like Google and OpenAI.

Despite the split in strategic vision, LeCun confirmed that Meta will partner with his new startup, suggesting the company recognizes the long-term value in his pioneering work.