Meta's AI Chief Yann LeCun on AGI, Open-Source, and AI Risk

Meta's chief AI scientist, Yann LeCun, received another accolade to add to his long list of awards on Sunday, when he was recognized with a TIME100 Impact Award for his contributions to the world of artificial intelligence. Ahead of the award ceremony in Dubai, LeCun sat down with TIME to discuss the barriers to achieving "artificial general intelligence" (AGI), the merits of Meta's open-source approach, and what he sees as the "preposterous" claim that AI could pose an existential risk to the human race. TIME spoke with LeCun on Jan. 26. This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity. Many people in the tech world today believe that training large language models (LLMs) on more computing power and more data will lead to artificial general intelligence.