Yann LeCun, Meta's chief AI scientist, is leaving his role after 12 years to start a new company focused on advanced machine intelligence (AMI). LeCun's new venture aims to develop AI capable of understanding the physical world, maintaining persistent memory, reasoning, and planning complex actions, diverging from the current large language model (LLM) trend. Despite Meta's recent layoffs and investment shifts in AI, LeCun will maintain a partnership with Meta while pursuing his independent vision and has criticized LLMs for lacking genuine understanding.