--- title: "Facebook’s Chief AI Scientist Says LLMs Are Just a Passing Fad" description: "Facebook's AI guru is coming for the artificial intelligence chatbot craze — and it may put him at odds with his own employer. " date: "2023-06-15" modified: "2023-06-15" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/yann-lecun-large-language-models-fad" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" tags: - "facebook" - "Meta" - "the digest" - "yann lecun" --- # Facebook’s Chief AI Scientist Says LLMs Are Just a Passing Fad ![Facebook's AI guru is coming for the artificial intelligence chatbot craze — and it may put him at odds with his own employer. ]() *\Image: Chesnot via Getty / Futurism\* ## Chatbot Mania Facebook's AI guru and [machine learning pioneer Yann Lecun]() is coming for the artificial intelligence chatbot craze — and it may put him at odds with his own employer. As [*Fortune* reports](), Meta's chief AI scientist Yann Lecun admitted during a talk in Paris this week that he's not exactly a fan of the current spate of chatbots and the large language models (LLMs) they're built on. "A lot of people are imagining all kinds of catastrophe scenarios because of AI, and it’s because they have in mind these auto-regressive LLMs that kind of spew nonsense sometimes," he told the Meta Innovation Press Day crowd. "They say it’s not safe. They are right. It’s not. But it’s also not the future." He went on to argue that today's LLMs, such as OpenAI's GPT-3 and GPT-4 which undergirds ChatGPT, will eventually be replaced by better and more robust algorithms — a statement that's extra-interesting, because Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg seems to be all-in on making sure his company doesn't miss the craze. ## Zuck Moves Indeed, Zuckerberg announced in an all-hands meeting just last week that the company formerly known as Facebook [intends to jam AI into "every single one" of its products](). *Axios*, which [broke the news of the initiative](), reported that part of the plan includes allowing users to "use a text prompt to modify their own photos and share them in Instagram Stories" and to insert chatbots with different personalities into Facebook Messenger. Unless Facebook is sitting on some amazing and secret tech, that'll almost certainly be powered by LLMs. To be fair, Zuckerberg and LeCun have very different roles and may, in fact, agree in private about what the future of AI holds, and what value today's chatbots could bring to the company — but it's fascinating, to say the least, to hear one of the most respected names in AI trashing LLMs right after his boss announced that they're the root of the company's next pivot. **More on Facebook — er, Meta:** [*Facebook Has Crowbarred Open the Pandora's Box of AI, Experts Warn*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()