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The most powerful tech leaders in Silicon Valley have been racing to build artificial general intelligence (AGI), a theoretical computer that, as some would define it, can outperform humans across every economically valuable task.
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Some leaders have their sights set even higher, on artificial "superintelligence," a system that's unfathomably more intelligent than human beings, so much so that our comparatively puny intellects can't even imagine what such a system would be capable of; it'd be like an ant trying to converse with John von Neumann.
Now, Meta is slated to launch a research lab devoted to building superintelligent AI, according to a report from The New York Times. Alexander Wang, the 28-year-old founder of Scale AI, a startup that helps companies build AI apps, which could receive a multibillion-dollar investment from Meta soon, will reportedly join the new lab.
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The news marks Meta's latest effort to stay ahead in the ongoing AI race, which has engulfed much of the tech world since the launch of ChatGPT in 2022 revealed the technology's capabilities to a mainstream audience.
The company has embedded its chatbot product, Meta AI, across its suite of social media platforms, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, and in its smart glasses. Meanwhile, Meta has sought to position itself as a more developer-friendly alternative to its competitors by open-sourcing its AI systems, including its family of Llama large language models.
The big fish eat the small
Companies like Meta (previously Facebook), which ascended during the rise of the internet and social media in the early 2000s and 2010s have rushed to embrace AI, widely touted as the technological backbone of the future.
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