History of Meta AI in Timeline
Meta AI is the research division of Meta Platforms, dedicated to advancing artificial intelligence and augmented/virtual reality technologies. Distinguished as an academic research lab, its core mission is knowledge generation for the broader AI community. It is separate from Meta's Applied Machine Learning (AML) team, which concentrates on the practical implementation of AI within Meta's products and services. Meta AI's work is thus geared towards theoretical advancement and open research within the field of AI, rather than direct product development.
2014: Vladimir Vapnik Joined FAIR
In 2014, Vladimir Vapnik, a pioneer in statistical learning and co-inventor of the support-vector machine, joined FAIR.
2015: FAIR Opened Research Center in Paris
In 2015, FAIR opened a research center in Paris, France, and subsequently launched smaller satellite research labs in Seattle, Pittsburgh, Tel Aviv, Montreal and London.
2017: PyTorch Released and AI Bot Language Incident
In 2017, FAIR released PyTorch, an open-source machine learning framework. Also in 2017, a research project was discontinued after AI bots developed an unintelligible language, but FAIR clarified it was due to achieving their initial goal.
2018: Jérôme Pesenti Assumed Role of President of FAIR
In 2018, Jérôme Pesenti became the president of FAIR, succeeding Yann LeCun, who transitioned to chief AI scientist. FAIR was placed 25th in AI Research Rankings.
2019: FAIR Rose to Eighth Position in AI Research Rankings
In 2019, FAIR rose to eighth position in the AI Research Rankings, improving from its 25th position in the previous year.
2020: FAIR Maintained Eighth Position in AI Research Rankings
In 2020, FAIR maintained its eighth position in the AI Research Rankings.
November 2022: Galactica Language Model Release and Withdrawal
In November 2022, Meta AI released Galactica, a large language model for scientific text, but withdrew it on November 17, 2022, due to offensiveness and inaccuracy.
2022: Meta AI Predicted 3D Shape of 600 Million Potential Proteins
In 2022, Meta AI predicted the 3D shape of 600 million potential proteins in two weeks.
2022: HyperTree Proof Search (HTPS) Created
In 2022, Meta created a method for proving mathematical theorems called HyperTree Proof Search (HTPS), which successfully generated proofs of 10 International Mathematical Olympiad problems in Lean.
2022: Switch to Nvidia GPUs
Until 2022, Meta AI primarily used CPUs and in-house custom chips as hardware. In 2022, Meta AI switched to Nvidia GPUs. This necessitated a complete redesign of several data centers, since they needed 24 to 32 times the networking capacity and new liquid cooling systems.
February 2023: LLaMA Launched
In February 2023, Meta AI launched LLaMA (Large Language Model Meta AI), a large language model ranging from 7B to 65B parameters.
September 27, 2023: Meta AI Pre-Installed on Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses
On September 27, 2023, Meta AI was pre-installed on the second generation of Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses as a voice assistant.
February 27, 2024: Launch of Standalone AI App
On February 27, 2024, Meta announced the launch of a standalone AI app, expanding its AI ecosystem beyond social media integration. The app aims to enhance user experience with advanced AI capabilities and introduce a premium subscription model.
April 23, 2024: Meta AI Updated on Smart Glasses with Multimodal Input
On April 23, 2024, Meta announced an update to Meta AI on the smart glasses to enable multimodal input via Computer vision.
May 2024: Meta AI Summarizing News Without Links
Since May 2024, the Meta AI chatbot has summarized news from various outlets without linking directly to original articles, including in Canada, where news links are banned on its platforms. This use of news content without compensation has raised ethical and legal concerns.
July 23, 2024: Meta AI with Vision Incorporated into Horizon OS
On July 23, 2024, Meta announced that Meta AI with Vision would be incorporated into v68 of Horizon OS on the Meta Quest 3 and Quest Pro for detection of physical objects in passthrough mode, replacing the older voice assistant software in Horizon OS.
