Meta Delays Rollout of New AI Model After Performance Concerns
- Reference: 0180973390
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/03/13/1756229/meta-delays-rollout-of-new-ai-model-after-performance-concerns
- Source link:
> The model, code-named Avocado, outperformed Meta's previous A.I. model and did better than Google's Gemini 2.5 model from March, two of the people said. But it has not performed as strongly as Gemini 3.0 from November, they said. As a result, Meta has delayed Avocado's release to at least May from this month, the people said. They added that the leaders of Meta's A.I. division had instead discussed temporarily licensing Gemini to power the company's A.I. products, though no decisions have been reached.
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> [...] It takes time to improve A.I. models, and Meta can still catch up to rivals, A.I. experts said. But a longer timeline has set in at the company, with Mr. Zuckerberg tempering expectations for Avocado in the past few months. "I expect our first models will be good, but more importantly will show the rapid trajectory we're on," he said on a call with investors in January.
A Meta spokesperson said in a statement: "As we've said publicly, our next model will be good but, more importantly, show the rapid trajectory we're on, and then we'll steadily push the frontier over the course of the year as we continue to release new models. We're excited for people to see what we've been cooking very soon."
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/12/technology/meta-avocado-ai-model-delayed.html
Leapfrog (Score:2)
For a company to show AI Leadership (whatever that means), the new model must leapfrog the previous released model numbers (from your competitor). Mark does not want to appear to be behind Google's previous model (it would impact his stature).
I wonder which company will figure out how to successfully game the numbers first.
I Feel Conflicted (Score:2)
On the one hand, Zuck is pure evil, and I hate all things Meta.
On the other hand, their model is one of the best open models, and I want open models to succeed.
Not sure whether to cheer this news or be disappointed.
Re: (Score:3)
Is the training data open? No? Not an open model then.
Re: I Feel Conflicted (Score:2)
It's open weights, not open source. But the word "open" meant documented and interoperable before it popularly was applied to source code, so yes, that's still a kind of openness. Open systems, open standards...
The AI IQ asymptote is coming (Score:2)
The AI IQ asymptote is coming and will take down all the AI-heavy companies.
Let's hope their bankruptcies don't have too much effect on real businesses built on real numbers.
And of course: GPU, HDD, SSD and RAM fire sales !
Re: (Score:2)
Fire sales on server equipment that almost no one can use in their home computer. Even the bubble pop will be as useless then as it is now.
Re: (Score:2)
> Fire sales on server equipment that almost no one can use in their home computer.
The OCP (Open Compute Project) solutions are optimized for the hyperscaler datacenters, and reuse in a home lab after retirement is not a design goal (well, unless you have a datacenter in your home). Given the demand for AI hardware (and profit to be made) the major vendors are likely prioritizing solutions that are OCP (or other hyperscaler designs) compliant, which will dry up the used market at the lower end that was a sweet spot for the home lab users.
An ongoing rewrite (Score:2)
From what I've heard the incredibly well compensated engineers Zuck poached from the competition have had to rewrite much of Meta's AI architecture. Presumably Meta had retained all of their corpus of training data for loading into the new model but they are chasing a rapidly moving target. Google's Gemini 2.5 is ancient history (meaning several months old). Gemini 3.1 is widely available but it isn't nearly as good at coding as the most recent Anthropic models. I'm skeptical that Meta can ever catch up.
Obligatory (Score:2)
"That's what she said."
Re: (Score:2)
Amateur.