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I'm not sure what's keeping LeCun at Meta at this point. I can imagine he's not happy with Zuck's capitulation. I'm sure you're right that if he decided to leav

I'm not sure what's keeping LeCun at Meta at this point. I can imagine he's not happy with Zuck's capitulation. I'm sure you're right that if he decided to leave he'd easily be able to get funding. I'm sure France would be willing to set him up with an AI research lab to get him back there. And there would be plenty of other companies/labs that would be trying to get him.

m_ke 2y ago
Yeah he could easily get Hinton (who hates nothing more than Sam Altman) to endorse a new proper open AI lab, similar to what was described in the OpenAI Charter. Karpathy, Alec Radford, and a ton of their old students are practically free agents right now who could probably be convinced to join. There's probably even a chance of someone like Wojciech Zaremba leaving OpenAI to join them. EU would build them CERN style compute clusters to train healthcare, education, climate, etc models. I'm sure there's plenty of people at HuggingFace, Eluther, old Stability AI group who'd also love to get involved.
- fuzztester 2y ago
  yes ... let's dream on ... until the new openAI becomes just like the old openAI again. human nature will never change. q: what is the definition of an optimist? a: a person with no experience. q; what is the definition of a pessimist? a: an optimist with experience. mine ;)
sampton 2y ago
This type of idol worshipping has to stop. LeCun invented CNN but he also said world simulation using diffusion was a deadened, which has been proven very wrong. The money is better spent hiring new grads with open minds and something to prove.
- meta_x_ai 2y ago
  [dead]
- sparrc 2y ago
  He's a director not a "in the trenches" researcher anymore. He's being paid for being a highly technical leader who enables and recruits researchers he employs to do great work, similar to Oppenheimer in a way.
codemac 2y ago
$META is hitting 700, and RSU refresher price for 2022 performance was ~110. My bet, is Yann got a huge set of packages with the AI talent race, and what may have been a $10M/4yr package may now suddenly be 70M+. Unlikely any other AI lab would be liquid like that.
- maxerickson 2y ago
  Presumes he's a weird creature that is motivated by the number. Don't really need to care anymore if you've already got $10 million.
kernal 2y ago
>I'm not sure what's keeping LeCun at Meta at this point. Maybe he's happy with his compensation, his coworkers, the food at the cafeteria and doesn't want to uproot his life or be burdened with running a company. >I can imagine he's not happy with Zuck's capitulation Who did Zuck capitulate to?
- mikepurvis 2y ago
  I’d be pretty embarrassed to be working for someone who kissed the ring like Zuck did on Jan 20.
  - kernal 2y ago
    So kissing the ring and bending over was okay on Jan 20, 2021?
  - tdb7893 2y ago
    And it was already embarrassing for a myriad of reasons before that including how he went on Joe Rogan talking about how corporations need more "masculine energy". In the hobbies I participate in (notably I'm not in a major tech hub) some of these tech companies are getting a similar social stigma to like finance (and this is especially pronounced among women I know who really don't like what they view as "tech bros")
    - mikepurvis 2y ago
      Indeed, I think the inauguration was kind of Zuck's "pedo guy" moment, where the pieces fell into place and a whole bunch of people at once were like... oh, yes, okay I see what is actually the state of things here.
      - ryandrake 2y ago
        Zucc has been kissing various unsavory rings for a long time, though. It's not like this just started. Didn't he ask China's President for the honor of naming his baby? [1] Totally shameless suck-up. 1: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/china-s-president-xi-jinping-turns-down-mark-zuckerberg-s-request-to-name-his-unborn-child-at-white-house-dinner-a6679156.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/china-s-president-...
egorfine 2y ago
> I'm sure France would be willing to set him up Are you familiar with realities of incorporating a startup in the EU?
- mattmanser 2y ago
  In the UK it costs £12 and takes 5 minutes. It costs between £300-600 per year for an accountant to file your accounts, and £12 for your confirmation statement. And did when we were part of the EU. Cheaper and quicker than America. You don't incorporate in the EU, you incorporate in one of the 27 different countries. All have wildly different requirements.
  - orra 2y ago
    (These costs rocketed last year. Incorporation is now £50, and an electronic confirmation statement is £34.)
    - fmajid 2y ago
      You also have all sorts of ancillary fees like the Information Commissioner’s annual charge.
  - egorfine 2y ago
    UK was vastly different from the mainland EU. You're right that the EU is not singular, but once we start talking of Germany, the Netherlands, France, etc. - we quickly hit regulations that bear no resemblance to a free market and some of which are incompatible with IT business whatsoever.
- UncleOxidant 2y ago
  I suspect France/EU would be willing to set him up in a government funded research lab - possibly they already have something going that they could put him in charge of. No issues with incorporation.
  - egorfine 2y ago
UltraSane 2y ago
"I'm not sure what's keeping LeCun at Meta at this point." The most obvious options are 1) An insane amount of compensation. 2) Access to an insane amount of compute to train new LLMs.
tgma 2y ago
I've seen him on record that he'd pretty much work for whoever pays him (in the context of research grants for military). Virtue signaling to feel good is only worth so much to people. Humans compartmentalize very well.
- ryandrake 2y ago
  This seems like a pretty widely shared ethos in today's software engineering culture. "I'd happily build the Torment Nexus if you pay me enough!" No ethical baseline below which we refuse to pass. Simply a required $$$:EVIL ratio.
  - tgma 2y ago
    It's not always like that. Most of the team would be hired to move protobufs around for the Torment Nexus so it seems quite innocuous.
    - ryandrake 2y ago
      Yea, I think this is how a lot of engineers rationalize it. "Well, I'm not directly participating in my company's A/B experiment to see what types of content drive children to suicidal ideation! I'm just moving data from the project's logging side of the stack to the metrics side of the stack so that reports can be generated. Don't blame me!"
- kelnos 2y ago
  It saddens me that taking an ethical stance is now derisively considered "virtue signaling". I would never work at Meta, not because refusing to do so would make me feel good, but because working there would make me feel like I'm making the world a worse place.
  - alecb 2y ago
    The idea of having a moral compass is antagonistic to the worldview of a lot of people in tech, so they are instinctively dismissive or condescending to anyone who does.

m_ke 2y ago

Yeah he could easily get Hinton (who hates nothing more than Sam Altman) to endorse a new proper open AI lab, similar to what was described in the OpenAI Charter. Karpathy, Alec Radford, and a ton of their old students are practically free agents right now who could probably be convinced to join. There's probably even a chance of someone like Wojciech Zaremba leaving OpenAI to join them. EU would build them CERN style compute clusters to train healthcare, education, climate, etc models. I'm sure there's plenty of people at HuggingFace, Eluther, old Stability AI group who'd also love to get involved.

fuzztester 2y ago
yes ... let's dream on ... until the new openAI becomes just like the old openAI again. human nature will never change. q: what is the definition of an optimist? a: a person with no experience. q; what is the definition of a pessimist? a: an optimist with experience. mine ;)

sampton 2y ago

This type of idol worshipping has to stop. LeCun invented CNN but he also said world simulation using diffusion was a deadened, which has been proven very wrong. The money is better spent hiring new grads with open minds and something to prove.

meta_x_ai 2y ago
[dead]
sparrc 2y ago
He's a director not a "in the trenches" researcher anymore. He's being paid for being a highly technical leader who enables and recruits researchers he employs to do great work, similar to Oppenheimer in a way.

codemac 2y ago

$META is hitting 700, and RSU refresher price for 2022 performance was ~110. My bet, is Yann got a huge set of packages with the AI talent race, and what may have been a $10M/4yr package may now suddenly be 70M+. Unlikely any other AI lab would be liquid like that.

maxerickson 2y ago
Presumes he's a weird creature that is motivated by the number. Don't really need to care anymore if you've already got $10 million.

kernal 2y ago

>I'm not sure what's keeping LeCun at Meta at this point. Maybe he's happy with his compensation, his coworkers, the food at the cafeteria and doesn't want to uproot his life or be burdened with running a company. >I can imagine he's not happy with Zuck's capitulation Who did Zuck capitulate to?

mikepurvis 2y ago
I’d be pretty embarrassed to be working for someone who kissed the ring like Zuck did on Jan 20.
- kernal 2y ago
  So kissing the ring and bending over was okay on Jan 20, 2021?
- tdb7893 2y ago
  And it was already embarrassing for a myriad of reasons before that including how he went on Joe Rogan talking about how corporations need more "masculine energy". In the hobbies I participate in (notably I'm not in a major tech hub) some of these tech companies are getting a similar social stigma to like finance (and this is especially pronounced among women I know who really don't like what they view as "tech bros")
  - mikepurvis 2y ago
    Indeed, I think the inauguration was kind of Zuck's "pedo guy" moment, where the pieces fell into place and a whole bunch of people at once were like... oh, yes, okay I see what is actually the state of things here.
    - ryandrake 2y ago
      Zucc has been kissing various unsavory rings for a long time, though. It's not like this just started. Didn't he ask China's President for the honor of naming his baby? [1] Totally shameless suck-up. 1: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/china-s-president-xi-jinping-turns-down-mark-zuckerberg-s-request-to-name-his-unborn-child-at-white-house-dinner-a6679156.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/china-s-president-...

egorfine 2y ago

> I'm sure France would be willing to set him up Are you familiar with realities of incorporating a startup in the EU?

mattmanser 2y ago
In the UK it costs £12 and takes 5 minutes. It costs between £300-600 per year for an accountant to file your accounts, and £12 for your confirmation statement. And did when we were part of the EU. Cheaper and quicker than America. You don't incorporate in the EU, you incorporate in one of the 27 different countries. All have wildly different requirements.
- orra 2y ago
  (These costs rocketed last year. Incorporation is now £50, and an electronic confirmation statement is £34.)
  - fmajid 2y ago
    You also have all sorts of ancillary fees like the Information Commissioner’s annual charge.
- egorfine 2y ago
  UK was vastly different from the mainland EU. You're right that the EU is not singular, but once we start talking of Germany, the Netherlands, France, etc. - we quickly hit regulations that bear no resemblance to a free market and some of which are incompatible with IT business whatsoever.
UncleOxidant 2y ago
I suspect France/EU would be willing to set him up in a government funded research lab - possibly they already have something going that they could put him in charge of. No issues with incorporation.
- egorfine 2y ago

UltraSane 2y ago

"I'm not sure what's keeping LeCun at Meta at this point." The most obvious options are 1) An insane amount of compensation. 2) Access to an insane amount of compute to train new LLMs.

tgma 2y ago

I've seen him on record that he'd pretty much work for whoever pays him (in the context of research grants for military). Virtue signaling to feel good is only worth so much to people. Humans compartmentalize very well.

ryandrake 2y ago
This seems like a pretty widely shared ethos in today's software engineering culture. "I'd happily build the Torment Nexus if you pay me enough!" No ethical baseline below which we refuse to pass. Simply a required $$$:EVIL ratio.
- tgma 2y ago
  It's not always like that. Most of the team would be hired to move protobufs around for the Torment Nexus so it seems quite innocuous.
  - ryandrake 2y ago
    Yea, I think this is how a lot of engineers rationalize it. "Well, I'm not directly participating in my company's A/B experiment to see what types of content drive children to suicidal ideation! I'm just moving data from the project's logging side of the stack to the metrics side of the stack so that reports can be generated. Don't blame me!"
kelnos 2y ago
It saddens me that taking an ethical stance is now derisively considered "virtue signaling". I would never work at Meta, not because refusing to do so would make me feel good, but because working there would make me feel like I'm making the world a worse place.
- alecb 2y ago
  The idea of having a moral compass is antagonistic to the worldview of a lot of people in tech, so they are instinctively dismissive or condescending to anyone who does.