Original title: Apple Loses Robotics AI Researcher to Meta
Apple’s lead artificial intelligence researcher for robotics is leaving the company for Meta, reports Bloomberg. Jian Zhang joined the Meta Robotics Studio on Tuesday. Three additional AI researchers are also leaving Apple’s Foundation Models AI team for OpenAI and Anthropic, continuing an exodus that began in July. At least a dozen AI experts have left Apple for Meta, OpenAI, and other companies since January. Meta has been offering AI engineers massive pay packages that other AI companies are not able to compete with. Meta was able to lure Apple’s Foundational Models team lead Ruoming Pang with a $200 million pay package. Zhang was developing automation technology and exploring the role of AI in tech products, but his team was separate from the group that is working on creating a robot virtual companion. According to a recent report from Financial Times, industry recruiters see the mass departures from Apple as a “crisis of confidence” around the company’s AI future. Apple is continu