A Meta Change on Publishing Research Causes a Stir in Its AI Group

In recent weeks, Meta Platforms made a change to its Fundamental Artificial Intelligence Research lab that rubbed members of the group the wrong way: FAIR, as the group is known, would have to undergo additional review of its research before publishing it, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The new policy was a tough pill to swallow for some members of FAIR, who perceived the change as a new restriction on the freedom they had previously had to share their research outside Meta, according to six people familiar with the matter. But Meta has spent much of this year remaking its broader AI efforts, and it has pushed FAIR to contribute to Meta’s products and spend less time on sharing research externally, which can help the company’s competitors.

The changes so bothered Yann LeCun, an AI pioneer who co-founded FAIR in 2013, that he mused to colleagues in September that perhaps he should quit as FAIR’s chief scientist, two of the people said.