Latest news with #FAIR
Business Insider
3 days ago
- Business
- Business Insider
Meta's Llama AI team has been bleeding talent. Many top researchers have joined French AI startup Mistral.
Meta's open-source Llama models helped define the company's AI strategy. Yet the researchers who built the original version have mostly moved on. Of the 14 authors credited on the landmark 2023 paper that introduced Llama to the world, just three still work at Meta: research scientist Hugo Touvron, research engineer Xavier Martinet, and technical program leader Faisal Azhar. The rest have left the company, many of them to join or found its emerging rivals. Meta's brain drain is most visible at Mistral, the Paris-based startup co-founded by former Meta researchers Guillaume Lample and Timothée Lacroix, two of Llama's key architects. Alongside several fellow Meta alums, they're building powerful open-source models that directly compete with Meta's flagship AI efforts. The exits over time raise questions about Meta's ability to retain top AI talent just as it faces a new wave of external and internal pressure. The company is delaying its largest-ever AI model, Behemoth, after internal concerns about its performance and leadership, The Wall Street Journal reported. Llama 4, Meta's latest release, received a lukewarm reception from developers, many of whom now look to faster-moving open-source rivals like DeepSeek and Qwen for cutting-edge capabilities. Inside Meta, the research team has also seen a shake-up. Joelle Pineau, who led the company's Fundamental AI Research group (FAIR) for eight years, announced last month that she would step down. She will be replaced by Robert Fergus, who co-founded FAIR in 2014 and then spent five years at Google's DeepMind before rejoining Meta this month. The leadership reshuffle follows a period of quiet attrition. Many of the researchers behind Llama's initial success have left FAIR since publishing their landmark paper, even as Meta continues to position the model family as central to its AI strategy. With so many of its original architects gone and rivals moving faster in open-source innovation, Meta now faces the challenge of defending its early lead without the team that built it. That's particularly significant because the 2023 Llama paper was more than just a technical milestone. It helped legitimize open-weight large language models with underlying code and parameters that are freely available for others to use, modify, and build on, as viable alternatives to proprietary systems at the time, like OpenAI's GPT-3 and Google's PaLM. Meta trained its models using only publicly available data and optimized them for efficiency, enabling researchers and developers to run state-of-the-art systems on a single GPU chip. For a moment, Meta looked like it could lead the open frontier. Two years later, that lead has slipped, and Meta no longer sets the pace. Despite investing billions into AI, Meta still doesn't have a dedicated "reasoning" model, one built specifically to handle tasks that require multi-step thinking, problem-solving, or calling external tools to complete complex commands. That gap has grown more noticeable as other companies like Google and OpenAI prioritize these features in their latest models. The average tenure of the 11 departed authors at Meta was over five years, suggesting they weren't short-term hires but researchers deeply embedded in Meta's AI efforts. Some left as early as January 2023; others stayed through the Llama 3 cycle, and a few left as recently as this year. Together, their exits mark the quiet unraveling of the team that helped Meta stake its AI reputation on open models. A Meta spokesperson pointed to an X post about Llama research paper authors who have left. The list below, based on information from the researchers' LinkedIn profiles, shows where each of them ended up. Naman Goyal Left Meta: February 2025 Time at Meta: 6 years, 7 months Baptiste Rozière Current role: AI Scientist at Mistral Left Meta: August 2024 Time at Meta: 5 years, 1 month Aurélien Rodriguez Current role: Director, Foundation Model Training at Cohere Left Meta: July 2024 Time at Meta: 2 years, 7 months Eric Hambro Current role: Member of Technical Staff at Anthropic Left Meta: November 2023 Time at Meta: 3 years, 3 months Timothée Lacroix Left Meta: June 2023 Time at Meta: 8 years, 5 months Marie-Anne Lachaux Current role: Founding Member and AI Research Engineer at Mistral Left Meta: June 2023 Time at Meta: 5 years Thibaut Lavril Current role: AI Research Engineer at Mistral Left Meta: June 2023 Time at Meta: 4 years, 5 months Armand Joulin Current role: Distinguished Scientist at Google DeepMind Left Meta: May 2023 Time at Meta: 8 years, 8 months Gautier Izacard Current role: Technical Staff at Microsoft AI Left Meta: March 2023 Time at Meta: 3 years, 2 months Edouard Grave Current role: Research Scientist at Kyutai Left Meta: February 2023 Time at Meta: 7 years, 2 months Guillaume Lample Left Meta: Early 2023 Time at Meta: 7 years
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Insurance companies hit with lawsuit from families devastated by California fires: 'Refusing to compete with each other'
After wildfires rocked multiple Los Angeles neighborhoods in January, families have struggled to rebuild. Many found themselves without enough home insurance — and now, some are suing the huge companies they say are responsible for leaving them in the lurch, according to A group of 14 families has banded together against some of the biggest insurance companies in the game, including State Farm and Farmers. As explained, the lawsuit claims that these companies broke California's antitrust and competition laws by acting in unison to terminate the insurance plans of people who lived in fire-risk areas. Then, they allegedly all refused to sell new policies in those areas and, instead, directed people to the state's backup insurer, the Fair Access to Insurance Requirements. The thing is, FAIR is a last-resort plan. Traditional insurers help fund it, but its policyholders pay more money than usual for substandard protection, reported. The plaintiffs in the suit will argue that starting in 2023, the insurance giants pushed people into FAIR — or out of coverage completely — and that this set the stage for the nightmare unfolding in the aftermath of the destructive fires. "[Insurers] realized that … by working together and all refusing to compete with each other for those policies, they could force everybody into this other plan that they jointly managed and owned and do better," Robert Ruyak, attorney for the plaintiffs, told These kinds of unfair policies create a coverage gap that is catastrophic in the event of extreme weather. Remember, these intense disasters are only becoming more frequent as a result of our dirty energy sources heating up the planet. The L.A. fires caused about $30 billion in real estate losses. As the plaintiffs' case shows, many families suffering high property damages would have been covered under their old policies, but they aren't under FAIR, Ruyak explained to This lawsuit may aim to recover funds for the 14 families, which would help them rebuild their homes and their lives. A class-action lawsuit was also filed on behalf of any homeowner left vulnerable under the FAIR Plan, reported. Do you think America is in a housing crisis? Definitely Not sure No way Only in some cities Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. You can also personally support wildfire victims through several different key organizations. Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
Chicago Tribune
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
Letters: Lawmakers should pass the FAIR Act to ensure all Illinoisans get a fair defense in court
Under the Sixth Amendment of the United State Constitution, all accused indigent people are guaranteed the right to effective legal representation in a court of law. Unfortunately, that is not happening in Illinois. Illinois has not significantly updated its public defense structure since 1949. The result is that Illinois is an outlier in the United States and is one of only a handful of states with no statewide body to ensure that those who cannot afford an attorney receive effective representation. Additionally, with 102 counties in Illinois, there are some counties that have no public defenders at all. About 60% of Illinois counties have no government office of public defense and instead contract with private attorneys, often on a part-time basis. Some counties may share a public defender or a judge may appoint any lawyer to represent a client even if that lawyer has no experience in public defense. The result of this lack of effective legal representation can lead to unnecessary jail admissions or prison sentences, which then damage individuals, families and communities through incarceration and lost wages. The Funded Advocacy & Independent Representation (FAIR) Act (HB3363) is currently in the Illinois Senate. Under the FAIR Act, an independent State Public Defender Commission and a state public defender position would be created. The commission would provide resources to county public defender offices, establish training programs and advocate for court system funding. The commission would determine metrics regarding public defender offices, caseloads, staffing and resources. It also would be able to offer resources to under-resourced counties in Illinois. Passing the FAIR Act would put into law the necessary structural changes that Illinois residents need in order to obtain fair and effective public defense representation. The passage of the FAIR Act would modernize the public defense system and offer to all people the constitutional protection and the vigorous defense we all should expect. When I was a child, my father believed that we only get the justice we can afford. That needs to change in Illinois now.A recent news article and opinion piece in the Tribune have an important connection. The Tribune Editorial Board enthused about successes at O'Hare International Airport ('First job for new aviation commissioner? Don't mess up Chicago's O'Hare Airport,' May 11), and Ron Grossman gave a fascinating look at Chicago Union Station's storied past ('100 years ago, the first trains pulled into Union Station,' May 11). Together, this coverage highlights the best possible future for Chicago transportation: connecting these two assets via a quick train ride. The key is bringing intercity and regional rail passengers within walking distance of O'Hare's ticket counters. The best transit systems in the world provide this. Imagine being able to travel conveniently between O'Hare and destinations throughout the region by intercity train. This would make O'Hare an even more appealing hub airport. It would allow ORD to focus on more profitable long-distance flights instead of connectors, while saving fuel and innumerable hours simply getting travelers to and from the airport. It would also fulfill the great potential of Union Station, now 100 years young and looking forward to a bright future as the hub of a magnificent Midwest rail system and future home of high-speed rail. We hope Michael McMurray, Chicago's new commissioner of aviation, sees this potential to revolutionize Chicago transit with a Union Station-O'Hare connection. We're pushing for five straightforward fixes at Union Station to better connect it to the region while increasing its capacity tenfold: a new concourse to make it easier to find your train, direct access to southern platforms from above, through-running trains on Amtrak and Metra to O'Hare, a shift from diesel to electric trains and better connections between Union Station and other transit assets, especially the Ogilvie Transportation Center and the Blue Line. The key is investment, and the looming fiscal cliff for transit presents an opportunity. Let's invest in a comprehensive railway program that connects O'Hare and Union Station as part of a network of fast, frequent, affordable trains and transit that serve our entire state and has become a thriving hub for life sciences innovation. Through our elected officials' foresight and planning and fueled by world-class universities, tech incubators and a growing ecosystem of venture-backed startups, Chicago is an epicenter of biotech and digital health. And essential to the innovation and breakthroughs emerging from the Chicago life sciences industry is artificial intelligence, a powerful tool whose promise we're only beginning to comprehend. AI is transforming the pace and precision of life sciences research in Chicago (and everywhere else). Machine learning is helping startups model new innovations to enhance clinical trials, power personalized medicine tailored to each patient's biology and achieve predictive diagnostics with unthinkable accuracy. It goes without saying that protecting the development of AI and minimizing obstacles to its continued use is essential for a hub such as Chicago. Lawmakers in Springfield are considering a bill, HB3506, to regulate companies that are utilizing AI, proposing technical reporting and compliance obligations that would prove costly and burdensome. As well intentioned as the policy may be, it would as written have a chilling effect on AI innovation by entangling early-stage life sciences startups in red tape before their innovations ever reach a patient or become commercially viable. Before finalizing any bill, Illinois policymakers should thoughtfully engage the community of talented life sciences entrepreneurs here in Chicago to better understand how AI functions in the life sciences. Regulation of this emerging industry is warranted but must be narrowed to address bad actors without handcuffing innovation. Proposed regulations that couple burdensome reporting requirements with overreaching policies risk imposing unsustainable costs on small startups — draining limited resources and possibly forcing promising startups to close before they can get off the ground. Illinois is poised to be a major contender in the next wave of medical innovation, so instead of fast-tracking legislation around a complex and nuanced issue such as artificial intelligence, legislators should take a measured and forward-looking approach. Chicago's life sciences and tech ecosystems are thriving, and we've only scratched the surface on the promise of AI to transform health care. Let's make sure Chicago is at the center of that transformation, supported by smart policy that fosters innovation at every my business was strapped for cash and traditional lending wasn't an option, I had to take a loan from a quick cash lender so my business could survive. But after taking out that financing, I realized that the lender lacked transparency when I saw how high the interest rate really was. This traps small business owners in a vicious debt cycle in which all they can afford to do is make the minimum loan payment, and sometimes, they can't even afford that. While I'm paying off my loan now, other small business owners are still struggling. There's no road map for navigating this debt while keeping cash flow steady. That's why I'm urging the Illinois legislature to support any legislation that would require noncommercial lenders to disclose their annual percentage rate, or APR. This is the only metric that enables borrowers to make apples-to-apples comparisons between different financing products. Small businesses need to be able to make informed decisions so they can access true capital, not high-interest traps that keep us struggling.I'm wondering why Jasmine Paolini, the first Italian to win the Italian Open in 40 years, got the 'Shorts' spot in the Sunday Sports section, while the match between Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner (who lost) got the nice, quarter page article the next day? Oh yeah. Women's sports. Silly me.
Time of India
09-05-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Meta appoints former Google DeepMind director Robert Fergus as head of AI Research lab
Representative image Facebook parent Meta has informed its staff that the company has appointed former Google DeepMind director Robert Fergus to lead its artificial intelligence research lab. According to a report by Bloomberg, Fergus will head the Fundamental AI Research (FAIR) lab at Meta. Fergus co-founded the Facebook AI Research lab (FAIR) along with Yann LeCun in 2014. Operation Sindoor IPL 2025 suspended as India-Pakistan tensions escalate Pakistan appeals for loans citing 'heavy losses', later says X account hacked Can Pakistan afford a war with India? Here's a reality check The unit takes care of AI research at the company. The FAIR lab creates models of advanced robotics, generate audio and further push boundaries of AI capabilities. As per Fergus LinkedIn profile, he was associated with Google DeepMind as a research director for five years. Before joining Google, Fergus was working with Meta as a research scientist. As per the report, Chief Product Officer Chris Cox informed the Meta employees that Fergus has joined FAIR labs and has succeeded Joelle Pineau , who announced departure plans last month. 'We're working towards building human-level experiences that transform the way we interact with technology and are dedicated to leading and advancing AI research,' Fergus said in a post on LinkedIn. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like New Container Houses Vietnam (Take A Look At The Prices) Container House | Search Ads Search Now Undo According to a report from Fortune, FAIR led research on the company's early AI models, including Llama 1 and Llama 2. However, the report states that many researchers have departed FAIR for other startups, companies, and even Meta's newer GenAI group, which spearheaded the development of Llama 4. AI Masterclass for Students. Upskill Young Ones Today!– Join Now
TechCrunch
08-05-2025
- Business
- TechCrunch
Meta taps former Google DeepMind director to lead its AI research lab
In Brief Meta has chosen Robert Fergus to lead its Fundamental AI Research (FAIR) lab, according to Bloomberg. Fergus had been working at Google DeepMind as a research director for nearly five years, per his LinkedIn. Prior to Google, he worked as a researcher scientist at Meta. Meta's FAIR, which has been around since 2013, has faced challenges in recent years, according to a report from Fortune. FAIR led research on the company's early AI models, including Llama 1 and Llama 2. However, researchers have reportedly departed the unit en masse for other startups, companies, and even Meta's newer GenAI group, which led the development of Llama 4. Meta's previous VP of AI Research, Joelle Pineau, announced in April she'd be leaving the company for a new opportunity.
