- Real-world impact is more important than benchmark scores, says Meta AI VP
- Song emphasizes security, trust and real-world benefits
- Meta’s latest model puts people first, she says
Dawn Song, Meta’s new head of AI research, is betting on agentic AI for the future of artificial intelligence, emphasizing that it should augment humans rather than completely replace them.
Song sees agents performing “economically valuable” tasks as repetitive, time-consuming work, ultimately freeing up humans to do more creative work.
As businesses struggle to quantify the impacts of AI and generate meaningful ROI, Song believes the focus should be on actual impact rather than benchmark scores.
AI agents should augment – not replace – humans
“The goal is not to replace humans,” Song told South China Morning Post. She confirmed that she would be joining Meta Superintelligence Labs in a LinkedIn post, along with other members of the Virtue AI team.
“[AI] must be safe, trustworthy and beneficial,” she added.
Song is also a professor of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, a university that recently introduced Agents’ Last Exam (ALE), a new type of benchmark that assesses whether AI agents can complete more than 1,500 economically interesting tasks across 55 different industries.
Meta itself launched its first new model, Muse, in April, which it says is designed to “put people first.”
As MSL’s vice president of AI research, Song will focus on AI safety, security and research, and will likely continue to emphasize the role of humans in an AI-driven era.
Model capabilities are no longer a drawback for AI developers, with human, socio-economic and geopolitical impacts now emerging as a major priority. Anthropic was recently forced by the White House to remove its latest pioneering models due to jailbreak issues.
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