Zuckerberg rejects AI slowdown, says safety is labs’ job

Meta Platforms ↘ 0.11% Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has rejected calls for an industry-wide slowdown in artificial intelligence development. In an interview with the Financial Times Pearson plc ↗ 3.18%, he said responsibility for model safety should fall on individual labs, Reuters reported. Zuckerberg told the newspaper that Meta has reached the AI "frontier" and caught up with its competitors. He said the company will keep spending because it is "already working on the next step up."tradingview+2

The comments came Monday, October 12, as Meta released Muse Wonder and Muse Wonder Full. The company calls them its most advanced models yet, built for personal and professional tasks. Zuckerberg said Muse Wonder outperforms some models from OpenAI and Anthropic. Meta shares rose about 3.7% Monday after the announcement.tech.yahoo+1

A break from rival labs

The interview puts Meta at odds with other major developers. Yahoo Finance technology editor Dan Howley said OpenAI and Anthropic have spoken more openly about slowing down. He added that Elon Musk said he agreed with an essay by Anthropic Chief Executive Dario Amodei calling for a broad slowdown. Howley summed up Zuckerberg's position this way: other companies are free to slow down, but Meta believes its own safety protocols are enough to protect what needs protecting.finance.yahoo

Howley also questioned whether any slowdown has actually happened. He noted that rivals keep releasing new models as they try to earn back billions of dollars in investment, especially as OpenAI and Anthropic move toward initial public offerings. He pointed to reports that OpenAI dropped a model that proved too aggressive on cyber tasks. In his view, labs are taking some action but have not paused development.finance.yahoo

What Muse Wonder does

Meta says the new models can handle tasks such as working through insurance claims, interpreting leases and building applications. As of Monday, developers could use Muse Wonder through the Meta Model API and Muse Code, and Muse Code subscribers could use Muse Wonder Full. The models include two features. "Active Memory" keeps information across conversations, and "Active Focus" lets the model keep working on hard problems, try different approaches and ask for clarification when needed.tech.yahoo

Meta said it trained the models not to share private information without permission and to refuse requests to help with harmful acts. It also said it built them under its Meta Superintelligence Scaling Framework. That fits Zuckerberg's view that each company, not an industry-wide pause, should handle safety.tech.yahoo

Market jitters over AI spending

Meta's promise to keep spending comes as investors grow more doubtful about AI returns. On Tuesday, Asian tech stocks fell sharply. South Korea's Kospi dropped 6.5%, and SK Hynix ↘ 0.98% and Samsung Electronics each fell about 8%. Investors were questioning whether heavy AI spending will pay off while borrowing costs stay high. Broadcom ↘ 0.55% Chief Executive Hock Tan added to the concerns, saying the AI boom has drawn investors whose strategies look like gambling.mybroadband