Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and Meta Platforms Inc.’s AI chief Yann LeCun’s public spat that re-started on Monday, ignited once again the following day when the tech behemoths clashed over the definition of science.
What Happened: On Tuesday, LeCun responded to a user on X, formerly Twitter, stating, “Well, if it’s not published, it’s definitely not science.” Musk fired back, saying “This is one of the dumbest things anyone has ever said.”
LeCun further clarified his position, stating that for research to be considered science, it must be correct, reproducible, and sufficiently detailed in a publication. He underscored the significance of peer review and reproducibility, asserting, “If you do research and don’t publish, it’s not Science.”
He cautioned that without these components, the research methodology could be flawed, and the work would remain unknown and unused. “No one will ever hear about your work. No one will pick it up and build on top of it. No one will build new technology and products with it. Your work will have been in vain. You’ll die bitter and forgotten.”
While LeCun admitted that unpublished research could potentially lead to wealth if developed into a product, he insisted that the researcher would still be “a bit bitter and largely forgotten.”
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Why It Matters: This latest public spat started on Monday after the Tesla CEO invited tech professionals to join his AI startup, xAI. LeCun didn’t like the idea and replied sarcastically by saying, “Join xAI if you can stand a boss who: – claims that what you are working on will be solved next year (no pressure).”
The pair have been in conflict since at least 2017, often holding differing views on AI. LeCun has previously challenged Musk’s assertion that AI will likely be smarter than any individual human next year.
Earlier this week, it was also reported that Musk-led xAI secured an impressive $6 billion in Series B funding, making it worth $24 billion. xAI’s only product out so far is a chatbot called Grok, trained with data from X.
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