Vincent Feuray / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP/Getty Images
Meta has launched a new internal R&D division devoted to building artificial superintelligence, Bloomberg reported on Monday.
The division, called Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL), will be led by Alexandr Wang and Nat Friedman, the former CEOs of Scale AI and GitHub, respectively. It will also be joined by seven ex-OpenAI engineers, according to an internal memo from CEO Mark Zuckerberg obtained by CNBC. Meta’s plans to launch the new division were first reported last month.
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“As the pace of AI progress accelerates, developing superintelligence is coming into sight,” Zuckerberg wrote in the memo. “I believe this will be the beginning of a new era for humanity, and I am fully committed to doing what it takes for Meta to lead the way.” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman expressed a similar belief in a recent blog post, adding that OpenAI was first and foremost “a superintelligence research company.”
MSL’s primary mission, Zuckerberg wrote in his internal memo, will be to deliver “personal superintelligence for everyone.” In classic tech industry fashion, this statement is both breathlessly grandiose and deeply vague.
Artificial superintelligence is typically defined as a computer system with capabilities that are exponentially more advanced than those of any human brain. It would mark a major technical leap forward from artificial general intelligence (AGI), which could match humans’ performance across virtually every economically valuable task.
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Like AGI, superintelligence is currently both completely hypothetical and lacks a single, universally agreed-upon definition. The term was popularized by the Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrum in his 2014 book of the same name, which primarily served as a warning about the dangers of the unconstrained growth of AI.
Zuckerberg didn’t offer much clarity in his memo surrounding what “personal superintelligence for everyone” might entail, but he intimated that MSL would evolve in unison with the company’s Llama family of large language models, as well as with its Smart Glasses division.
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Judging by the fact that all of the ex-OpenAI engineers on the MSL roster played some role in building that company’s o-series of models, it’s a safe bet that the new division will prioritize the development of reasoning models, which could be a core part of Meta’s long-term roadmap to building its vision of superintelligence.
Industry-wide competition heats up
Zuckerberg’s commitment to making Meta the leader in AI development has been made starkly apparent by the company’s recent efforts to poach top talent from its competitors. Altman has said Meta offered employees from his company a $100 million signing bonus — a staggering sum even by Silicon Valley standards — though one former ex-OpenAI engineer called this “fake news” in a X post last week.
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Meta isn’t alone. As AI investment — and hype — continues to grow, virtually every big tech firm has sought to attract top talent, now the industry’s most vital resource. Many have also purchased smaller AI start-ups to boost their competitive edge; Apple, for example, is reportedly weighing an acquisition of the AI-powered online search company Perplexity.
Meanwhile, as the industry’s more experienced pros are finding handsomely salaried homes inside some of tech’s biggest firms, AI appears to be making it more difficult for younger, less experienced engineers to get hired.
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