Meta's Chief AI Scientist Yann LeCun is departing at year-end, urging computer science students to prioritize foundational math and modeling skills with long-term relevance. He emphasized that a strong mathematical background is crucial for adapting to significant technological shifts, particularly in the evolving AI landscape.

Meta’s chief AI scientist Yann LeCun, who is leaving the company at the end of the year, recently advised computer science students to spend their time wisely and “learn things with a longer shelf life”.

Else, they may find out their degree doesn't add up, reports Business Insider. In an email statement to the publication, LeCun said “If you are a CS major and take the minimum required math courses for a typical CS curriculum, you might find yourself unable to adapt to major technological shifts”. LeCun shared similar views during his appearance on the "The Information Bottleneck" podcast. Yann LeCun, who is a computer science student at New York University, said on the podcast:“What we should do is learn kind of basic things in mathematics, in modeling, mathematics that can be connected with reality.

You tend to learn this kind of stuff in engineering in some schools that's linked with computer science, but sort of electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, et cetera.”Adding more about why learning computer science in the era of AI is important, he said “Obviously, you need to learn enough computer science to kind of program and use computers. And even though AI is going to help you be more efficient at programming, you still need to know how to do this”.

Meta’s chief AI scientist Yann LeCun to step down

Earlier this year, Yann LeCun announced to leave the company after 12 years. He then shared a long LinkedIn post writing:“As many of you have heard through rumors or recent media articles, I am planning to leave Meta after 12 years: 5 years as founding director of FAIR and 7 years as Chief AI Scientist. The impact of FAIR on the company, on the field of AI, on the tech community, and on the wider world has been spectacular. The creation of FAIR is my proudest non-technical accomplishment.I am creating a startup company to continue the Advanced Machine Intelligence research program (AMI) I have been pursuing over the last several years with colleagues at FAIR, at NYU, and beyond. The goal of the startup is to bring about the next big revolution in AI: systems that understand the physical world, have persistent memory, can reason, and can plan complex action sequences.I am extremely grateful to Mark Zuckerberg, Andrew Bosworth, Chris Cox, and Mike Schroepfer for their support of FAIR, and for their support of the AMI program over the last few years. Because of their continued interest and support, Meta will be a partner of the new company.As I envision it, AMI will have far-ranging applications in many sectors of the economy, some of which overlap with Meta’s commercial interests, but many of which do not. Pursuing the goal of AMI in an independent entity is a way to maximize its broad impact. I will give some more details about the new company when the time comes. In the meantime, I’m sticking around Meta until the end of the year.”