Meta's chief AI scientist Yann LeCun to computer science graduates: Your degrees won't count if you ...

Meta’s chief AI scientist and one of the godfathers of AI Yann LeCun recently said that computer science degrees may not matter if graduates do not spend their time wisely, per a Business Insider report. Advising computer science students, LeCun said that they must “learn things with a long shelf life.” “If you are a CS major and take the minimum required math courses for a typical CS curriculum, you might find yourself unable to adapt to major technological shifts,” LeCun said in an emailed statement to the publication.


During an appearance on "The Information Bottleneck" podcast, Yann LeCun said “What we should do is learn kind of basic things in mathematics, in modeling, mathematics that can be connected with reality.”


“You tend to learn this kind of stuff in engineering in some schools that's linked with computer science, but sort of electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, et cetera,” he added.

Yann LeCun clarifies his statement

In the podcast, LeCun jokingly pointed out that he did not initially study CS. He said some CS schools in the US are linked to engineering programs, which tend to require more advanced math. “Engineering disciplines, you know, in the US, you learn Calculus 1, 2, 3 that gives you a good basis, right?” LeCun said, adding “In computer science, you can get away with just Calculus 1. That's not enough, right?”.


He also joked that he's “a computer science professor arguing against studying computer science”.


Clarifying his statement later, Yann LeCun told BI “My recommendation was not to avoid CS as a major but to take the maximum number of courses on foundations (e.g. math, physics, or EE courses) rather than take courses on the trendy technology du jour.”

Yann LeCun on vibe coding

Sharing his views on vibe coding, LeCun said that basic programming should not be thrown out. Vibe coding is nice, but it's not a substitute for fundamental knowledge, he said.


“Obviously, you need to learn enough computer science to kind of program and use computers. And even though AI is going to help you be more efficient at programming, you still need to know how to do this”, LeCun said.