Meta’s CTO Andrew Bosworth spoke with Nikkei Asia last week. The conversation revolved around the hottest topic in Silicon Valley right now: AI.
In February, Meta released the LLaMA language models in response to GPT-3 and announced the formation of a new product group focused on generative AI.
Speaking to Nikkei Asia, Bosworth said commercialization of the technology is expected to begin this year. The CTO believes Meta’s AI can improve an ad’s effectiveness, partly by telling the advertiser what tools to use in making it. The company hopes to apply the technology to all of its products and services.
“We just created a new team, the generative AI team, a couple of months ago; they are very busy. It’s probably the area that I’m spending the most time [in], as well as Mark Zuckerberg and [Chief Product Officer] Chris Cox,” Bosworth said.
Anyone who sees this as a pivot to AI is mistaken. First, Meta is already investing more in AI than in the Metaverse. Mark Zuckerberg recently emphasized that advancing AI and building it into every Meta product is the company’s “single largest” investment.” Only about 20 percent of Meta’s investment budget goes to the Metaverse.
Second, Meta will continue to invest heavily in Reality Labs, the division that develops VR and AR products.
Meta has been talking more about AI than the Metaverse lately, or avoiding the M-word altogether, and this could be part of a new PR strategy. AI is cool, the Metaverse is not, at least not to most journalists and investors. Meta seems to have figured that out by now.
The fact that Meta’s CEO is focusing on artificial intelligence instead of elusive future technologies sends a positive signal to stakeholders. This could be one of the reasons why Meta’s share price has risen more than 140 percent since November and is still risi
