Facebook AI chief Yann LeCun is stepping down to take on dedicated research role
Yann LeCun, the head of Facebook’s internal artificial intelligence research division, is stepping down from his role to take on a more dedicated research position as chief AI scientist. LeCun has been an outspoken voice in the industry and a frequent critic of what the research community feels is unwarranted fear mongering around the technology. He will be handing his position over to Jérôme Pesenti, the chief technology officer of IBM’s Big Data group. The news was reported first by Quartz, and confirmed independently to The Verge today.
LeCun, a French computer scientist based out of New York City, has been instrumental in developing modern approaches to AI, including uses of convolutional neural nets for analyzing the visual data...