Facebook's new chief technology officer won't be overseeing as much as his predecessor.
Mike Schroepfer, one of Facebook's longest-serving executives, is stepping down this year as CTO. He oversaw artificial intelligence work, VR and AR, along with data centers, engineering, security and privacy and productivity.
His replacement, Andrew Bosworth, will not be responsible for all these departments, according to people familiar with the situation. Boz, as he's known, will mostly focus on Reality Labs, which includes Oculus and Facebook's $10 billion-plus annual investment in the "metaverse." The only other areas he will oversee as CTO are AI and now Workplace, Facebook's collaborative work platform.
The company, which last year changed its name to Meta, is deciding who the other departments will report to once Schroepfer leaves, according to the people, who asked not to be identified discussing internal changes. The Information reported last month that the AI team was being put under Facebook's AR/VR department.
A Meta spokesperson confirmed that Bosworth will not be taking on the same teams Schroepfer and that he will oversee Workplace, in addition to AI. Workplace has also been put under the Reality Labs umbrella.
"Other transitions are underway and will be complete once Boz officially becomes CTO sometime this year," the spokesperson added.
One of the people familiar with the situation noted that Bosworth has a different view than Schroepfer of what AI is capable of doing. Schroepfer once teared up in an interview with The New York Times when discussing examples of Facebook missing violent content on its social network and touted AI as the solution. Bosworth wrote in an internal company post that such content came down to human "demand," something Facebook could not control. Already, Facebook's metaverse is getting double the investment the company spends each year on platform moderation and safety efforts.
Exactly why Bosworth is not taking on oversight of all that Schroepfer had is unclear. One senior Facebook employee who recently left said Bosworth's main focus is on the metaverse and the hardware and technology that goes along with it. AI fits into much of that work.
