A Fool and His Money are Soon Parted

It has been reported that Meta (Facebook’s avatar) spent $72 billion (that’s with a B, not an M) on developing their AI software … in 2025 alone. Then, one of AI’s most respected scientists slammed the door on Meta. Yann LeCun, the co-inventor of deep learning and a key figure in modern AI, has resigned after 12 years. But that isn’t the news. As he exited he announced that Meta’s latest and greatest AI, Llama, had been “tweaked” for each AI test it was submitted to, resulting in higher scores than it warranted. And that the version of the AI distributed to the public was not any of those tweaked versions.

One wag characterized this as “It’s like a car manufacturer announcing 5 liters per 100 km after testing the vehicle on a downward slope with the engine off.” (NovTech)

Remember when Volkswagen “tweaked” its smog reports for a number of their vehicles? Volkswagen paid over $4.3 billion in combined criminal and civil penalties to the U.S. government, alongside billions more in consumer buybacks and environmental penalties, following its “Dieselgate” emissions cheating scandal. Key penalties included a $2.8 billion criminal fine, $1.5 billion in civil/customs penalties, and $2.7 billion for environmental mitigation. Total costs, including vehicle buybacks which possibly reached over $25 billion globally. And then there was the damage done to the Volkswagen brand. I wonder what that cost is.

So, is Meta likely to suffer a similar treatment? Is this why Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and chairman of Meta, and the controlling shareholder, keeps making donations to President McGrifter’s vanity projects? President Cheatolini admires cheaters but not those who get caught so much, but still, does Zuck have a pardon in his pocket?

Can you spell shareholder revolt, boys and girls?

Oh, and the tech prophets claiming an AI bubble is about to burst and possibly wreck the economy … worldwide … do you hear them now?