The Most Interesting Thing in AI

Meta's Plan to Win in AI - Andrew Bosworth with Nicholas Thompson

The Most Interesting Thing in AI

Show Notes

However you feel about Meta, Andrew Bosworth has likely played a part in it. The long-serving right hand to Mark Zuckerberg and current Chief Technology Officer, “Boz” has helped shape almost every stage of the company’s growth. He’s credited with introducing the Facebook News Feed in 2006, and, more recently, with overseeing the company’s efforts in the metaverse.

Now, Boz is a key figure behind Meta's artificial intelligence strategy. In late June, he joined Nicholas Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic, for a conversation covering the state of Meta AI: from the privacy concerns around its glasses to its controversial (and now halted) program training models on its employees’ keystrokes and mouse movements to its pivot from open-source AI to a proprietary model.

(00:00) Introduction

(02:34) Can AI glasses get past the developer ecosystem Catch-22?

(05:45) What’s true and false about NameTag, facial recognition, and Meta’s glasses

(09:22) Why Meta tracked employee keystrokes to teach AI how to use computers—and why it stopped

(12:20) The legal complications of tracking employee data

(15:58) Why unique professional workflows are more valuable than generic internet text

(18:15) Boz’s vision for AI: a tool to maximize individual human potential, not replace workers

(21:15) How AI produces faster coding but slower thinking, leading to "well-executed bad products"

(24:10) If AI doubles a worker's productivity, do companies hire fewer people or double the team size?

(28:38) Why Boz is optimistic about life "under the algorithm"

(32:08) Meta’s pivot from open source (Llama) to closed models (Muse Spark)

(37:25) How long will scaling laws hold?

(40:26) Where Meta already excels in AI

(46:27) Why energy production is the upstream constraint for the future of AI Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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