Meta’s Top Scientist Slams AI Hype: ’Today’s Machines Still Can’t Think Like Humans’
Yann LeCun, Meta’s chief AI scientist, just dropped a truth bomb on the state of artificial intelligence—and it’s not pretty.
Despite Wall Street pouring billions into AI startups (many of which will flame out by next earnings season), today’s neural networks still lack basic human reasoning. No common sense. No abstract understanding. Just glorified pattern-matching.
The brutal reality? We’re decades away from machines that truly ’think’—no matter what your crypto-funded AI pitch deck claims.
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LeCun advocates for “world-models,” AI systems trained to simulate cause-and-effect by predicting the outcomes of imagined actions. This, he says, brings AI closer to human cognition, where understanding arises from abstraction, not just data patterns.
But Meta’s bold ambitions are clashing with internal setbacks. The company is facing a brain drain from its AI research division. Many of the minds behind its Llama model have exited, with several joining Paris-based rival Mistral. Only 3 of the original 14 Llama architects remain at Meta, according to Insider.
The latest iteration of Meta’s flagship model, Llama 4, hasn’t generated much excitement among developers, who are increasingly gravitating toward faster-moving competitors like OpenAI’s GPT-4o, Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro, and Anthropic’s Claude 4 Sonnet. Reports also suggest Meta has delayed the release of its most advanced version, Llama 4 “Behemoth.”
As the AI arms race intensifies, LeCun’s call for deeper, more grounded intelligence may prove critical—but whether Meta can lead that shift while holding onto its top talent remains to be seen.
