Yann LeCun, Meta AI chief scientist and one of the “godfathers of AI,” asserts that current AI models lack four fundamental human traits: understanding the physical world, persistent memory, reasoning, and complex hierarchical planning.

He critiques existing methods that add supplementary features to AI models and advocates for “world-based models” that predict the state of the world based on actions, emphasizing abstraction for better real-world understanding.

Meta is exploring this approach through V-JEPA, a model that predicts abstract video representations rather than pixel-level details to capture hierarchical understanding.

LeCun remains optimistic about AI reaching human-level intelligence but warns it will take time and dismisses fears of AI spontaneously becoming dangerous.