By moving artificial intelligence development out of its research laboratories and into its product divisions, Facebook is hoping to speed up the technology’s adoption as the company strives for speedier growth.
A recent Facebook trend of centralizing AI research efforts has been shattered by this move.
Rather than centralizing AI and machine learning development, the parent company of social media behemoth Facebook, Meta Platforms Inc., revealed intentions to decentralize the process last week.
A few stand-alone R&D centers at Meta (NASDAQ: FB), according to CTO Andrew Bosworth in an online essay on Thursday, make it impossible to incorporate new AI capabilities into the company’s operations.
This AI system ownership will be returned to Meta’s product divisions under the new approach, according to Mr. Bosworth. “It’s our objective to speed up the implementation of significant technological innovations across our organization while allowing us to keep pushing the limits.”
Ultimately, Meta’s goal is to raise the market worth of everything it owns, reporting disappointing first-quarter profitability and the weakest quarterly sales growth since going public a decade ago. Sheryl Sandberg, the retiring COO, was succeeded by Javier Olivan, who is recognized for his development-oriented approach and has said that he would place an emphasis on both growth and efficiency.
This month will see the departure of Meta AI CEO, Jerome Pesenti as part of a reorganization. Mr. Pesenti was in charge of a number of important initiatives, including the building of an artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputer.
It has been challenging for many organizations with AI development centers to turn the skills they have developed into commercial assets. The hubs worked as an outsourced AI service with limited engagement from other departments.
An expert from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications in Urbana-National Champaign’s Center for Supercomputing Applications stated that Meta’s rearrangement is “a clear statement that they feel it is time to concentrate on integrating AI into their products,” Bill Gropp said. There will be an emphasis on discovering commercial uses of AI, rather than a broad chase of developing capabilities for their own sake, he added.
There will be no change in Meta’s AI research objective or leadership structure, according to a company spokesperson, Jon Carvill. Antoine Bordes and Joelle Pineau will continue to serve as co-directors of Facebook AI Research (FAIR), the company’s primary AI research center, he said.
The research center, a component of Meta’s Reality Labs Research division, will concentrate on virtual and augmented reality, as well as other metaverse-related topics.
Zuckerberg said the name change to Meta Platforms represented Facebook’s development prospects in the metaverse, where users interact with avatar-like characters and utilize digital headsets and other tools to work, shop, and play in video game-like surroundings. The metaverse is still some years away, according to most IT experts.
Due to increased expenditure on virtual reality headsets and software development and other VR technologies, Reality Labs lost over $3 billion in the first quarter. The unit’s $695 million in revenues, up from $534 million a year earlier, was one of the few bright spots in Meta’s sluggish first-quarter profits of $7.46 billion.
Meta’s decision to decentralize AI development “emphasizes the emphasis they put on the role of AI in the future of the metaverse,” says Nick van der Meulen, a research scientist at the Sloan Center for Information Systems Research at MIT.
A tech-focused company like Meta may no longer make commercial sense to have the future development of goods rely on a single organizational unit or group since “AI has become widespread, and hence central to all of their products,” Mr. van der Meulen said.
Because of this, “they don’t have to continually battle for resources from a centralized team, or express their case for development priority,” Mr. van der Meulen said, product groups like Reality Labs are able to build their own technology. Instead, businesses might use user input to design their own solutions, he added.
First, it’s a matter of research, then you need effective technical management and deliverables,” former Google CEO Eric Schmidt remarked. I think this is an excellent illustration of how artificial intelligence is becoming more commonplace.
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