Meta's chief AI scientist says terrorists and rogue states aren't going to take over the world with open-source AI

• Meta's Yann LeCun says it won't be easy for terrorists to takeover the world with open-source AI.
• Yann told Wired that they'd need a lot money and resources just to pull it off.

Meta AI chief Yann LeCun doesn't think criminals and terrorists can exploit open-source AI systems for nefarious purposes.

Yann says this is because of the sheer amount of resources it would take to pull something like that off.

"They would need access to 2,000 GPUs somewhere that nobody can detect, enough money to fund it, and enough talent to actually do the job," Yann told Wired's Steve Levy in a report published on December 22.

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Yann told Levy that wealthy states likely can't find a way to control open-source AI either.

"Actually, not even China does, because there's an embargo," Yann continued, referencing the US export bans on AI chips.

Meta has been a leading proponent of an open-source approach toward AI development. In July, Meta released Llama 2, a mostly open-source AI model.

Then, on December 5, the company allied with IBM "to support open innovation and open science in AI." The concerted push sets Meta apart from rivals like OpenAI and Google, who've adopted closed models.

Yann has often brushed aside claims of AI posing an existential threat to humanity. In June, he told the journalists at a press event in Paris that such statements are "preposterously ridiculous," per BBC News.

"Will AI take over the world? No, this is a projection of human nature on machines," Yann said then.

Representatives for Yann did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.