Meta appoints ChatGPT co-creator Shengjia Zhao as Chief Scientist of Superintelligence Lab

Meta Platforms has appointed Shengjia Zhao, one of the co-creators of ChatGPT and GPT-4, as chief scientist of its recently launched Superintelligence Lab. The announcement was made by CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a Threads post on Friday, as Meta moves to bolster its capabilities in advanced artificial intelligence.

“In this role, Shengjia will set the research agenda and scientific direction for our new lab working directly with me and Alex,” Zuckerberg wrote, referring to Meta’s Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang. Wang joined Meta from startup Scale AI after the company took a significant stake in it.

Zhao previously worked as a research scientist at OpenAI, where he contributed to several major projects, including GPT-4 and its iterations such as version 4.1 and the compact o3 model. He is one of several researchers who have recently left OpenAI to join Meta, reflecting a growing battle for AI talent across Silicon Valley.

The hiring spree comes amid Meta’s efforts to bounce back from the lukewarm reception of its Llama 4 model. To accelerate its AI development, Meta has begun offering highly competitive compensation packages and striking deals with startups to recruit leading researchers.

Meta launched the Superintelligence Lab to bring together its most advanced AI research, focusing on the development of artificial general intelligence. Zhao is also listed as a co-founder of the lab, which operates independently from FAIR, Meta’s longer-standing AI research division headed by deep learning pioneer Yann LeCun.

Zuckerberg has said that Meta’s aim is to build “full general intelligence” and to release much of its AI research as open source. This approach has received mixed reactions from the AI research community, with some applauding the openness while others raise concerns about safety and misuse.