Meta creates a team to develop AI that will be smarter than any human

Meta wants to win the race to develop the most capable AI tools the market has to offer. The Mountain View-based technology company is going to create a new group of workers and scientists focused on developing artificial superintelligence —a supercharged version of today's machines that, when it arrives, according to some gurus, could be capable of surpassing any human in knowledge and thinking, regardless of their field of expertise.

"As the pace of AI progress accelerates, the development of superintelligence is on the horizon. I believe this will be the beginning of a new era for humanity, and I am fully committed to doing what it takes to help Meta lead the way," Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement sent to staff and first reported by Bloomberg .

The group of scientists will be integrated into a team called the Meta Superintelligence Lab. It will be led by Alexander Wang , former CEO of the data labeling startup Scale AI, which was recently acquired by Meta for $14.3 billion. Wang will be primarily responsible for the business side and for convincing investors to invest in the company's technology. "He has a clear understanding of the historical importance of superintelligence and, as co-founder and CEO, built ScaleAI into a rapidly growing company, involved in the development of nearly all of the industry's leading models," Zuckerberg said of his appointment.

Facebook's parent company also announced that Nat Friedman , former CEO of Github, will collaborate with Wang in leading the new group; specifically, he will be responsible for leading research and development of new AI-based tools.

The new group also includes several former employees of OpenAI , the company behind ChatGPT , the tool that started the generative artificial intelligence craze. The firm led by Sam Altman is one of the most ambitious to date in the pursuit of superintelligence. Some analysts even expect the company to announce in the coming months the creation of a tool that could be considered the first artificial general intelligence (AGI), which would represent a hypothetical midpoint between current tools and a higher version, the arrival of which is unclear as to when or how.

The team also includes former Google employees and AI startups like Anthropic. All of them have been recruited by Meta with lucrative financial offers that, according to OpenAI, which has suffered the most from the talent acquisition, include signing bonuses of up to $100 million.