Facebook's Head of AI Says the Field Will Soon ‘Hit the Wall’
Jerome Pesenti leads the development of artificial intelligence at one of the world’s most influential—and controversial—companies. As VP of artificial intelligence at Facebook, he oversees hundreds of scientists and engineers whose work shapes the company’s direction and its impact on the wider world.
AI is fundamentally important to Facebook. Algorithms that learn to grab and hold our attention help make the platform and its sister products, Instagram and WhatsApp, stickier and more addictive. And, despite some notable AI flops, like the personal assistant M, Facebook continues to use AI to build new features and products, from Instagram filters to augmented reality apps.
Mark Zuckerberg has promised to deploy AI to help solve some of the company’s biggest problems, by policing hate speech, fake news, and cyberbullying (an effort that has seen limited success so far). More recently, Facebook has been forced to reckon with how to stop AI-powered deception in the form of deepfake videos that could convincingly spread misinformation as well as enable new forms of harassment.
