ClaimsYann LeCun

“Max is a professor at MIT. His job, like mine, is to increase the intelligence of students and other humans.”

Yann LeCun, own X post 23 June 2023 Post by @ylecun on X, 2023-06-23 (X)

Factual Their own work or organisation

Max Tegmark is a professor at MIT.

Resolved true The record shows it happened or was so.

Factual: Statements about the present or the past, checked against the record: did they hold up?

The second judge would not resolve this claim; the verdict shown is the first judge's.

What would count as true or false

Judge as of 2023-06-23. True: MIT's official faculty directory or physics department pages show Max Tegmark held a professorship at MIT (any professor rank) on that date. Mostly true: he held an MIT faculty post on that date but with a different title (e.g. a non-professorial academic appointment). Mostly false: he had been an MIT professor but was not one on that date (e.g. left or retired earlier). False: he never held a professorship at MIT.

Set before the research began.

Evidence (3)

  1. E1 Max Tegmark - MIT Kavli Institute MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research (MIT)

    “Professor of Physics, Principal Investigator”
  2. E2 Max Tegmark - MIT Kavli Institute MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research (MIT)

    “arriving at MIT in September 2004, along with his wife, fellow astrophysicist Angelica de Oliveira-Costa, and their two sons, Philip and Alexander.”
  3. E3 Written Statement of Dr. Max Tegmark to the AI Insight Forum - Future of Life Institute Future of Life Institute · 24 October 2023 Own record

    “My name is Max Tegmark, and I am a Professor of Physics at MIT’s Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Fundamental Interactions and the Center for Brains, Minds and Machines.”

Reasoning

An MIT Kavli Institute page lists Max Tegmark as "Professor of Physics, Principal Investigator" (E1), and the same page says he arrived at MIT in September 2004 (E2). The MIT page is undated, but a statement dated October 2023 also describes him as a Professor of Physics at MIT (E3). An undated MIT profile lists him as Professor of Physics [E1], the same page says he arrived at MIT in September 2004 [E2], and an October 2023 statement gives the same title [E3]; this is consistent with his being an MIT professor on 23 June 2023.

Cite this claim

Yann LeCun, “Max Tegmark is a professor at MIT.” (said 23 June 2023). Verdict: resolved true. Reliability API, claim c_ce3e6a190004, method 0.1.0+c876030c, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_ce3e6a190004

This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.

Reply to this claim

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More factual claims by Yann LeCun

  1. Resolved true Factual 1 October 2026
    ““It’s AI for the physical world, so it’s not language-related,” LeCun said.”

    AMI Labs' work is AI for the physical world and is not language-related.

  2. Resolved true Factual 1 October 2026
    ““It’s systems that understand the real world, like a manufacturing plant or turbojet engine.””

    AMI Labs builds systems that understand the real world, such as a manufacturing plant or turbojet engine.

  3. Mostly true Factual 29 March 2024
    “Full house for my lecture hosted by the Center of Mathematical Sciences and Applications at Harvard yesterday.”

    Yann LeCun gave a lecture hosted by the Center of Mathematical Sciences and Applications at Harvard on 2024-03-28 to a full house.

  4. Resolved true Factual 28 July 2016
    “A recent series of 8 lectures on deep learning that I gave at Collège de France in Paris.”

    Yann LeCun gave a recent series of 8 lectures on deep learning at Collège de France in Paris.

  5. Resolved false Factual 1 October 2026
    ““Those agents are doing exactly what they’ve been asked to do,” LeCun said.”

    The OpenAI agents involved in the Hugging Face hacking incident were doing exactly what they had been asked to do.

All of them

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