No. 54 in America · Week of November 9, 2026
Computer scientist, NYU
Yann LeCun is a pioneer of deep learning and a professor at New York University.
Photo: Jérémy Barande, CC BY-SA 2.0
Score breakdown
Nine parts, measured fresh each week. This is where Yann LeCun's points came from, and the evidence behind each one.
Debate record
Argued against AI as an existential threat at the Munk Debates, on the winning side.
LeCun is the Jacob T. Schwartz Professor of Computer Science at NYU's Courant Institute and was Chief AI Scientist at Meta before co-founding Advanced Machine Intelligence Labs.
His work spans machine learning, computer vision and robotics.
On the record
2023
June 22, 2023
Formal debateWon the audience vote
Against Max Tegmark and Yoshua Bengio · Munk Debates, Toronto
Yann LeCun argued against the motion with Melanie Mitchell. The con side won the audience vote, swinging 3 percent.
2017
October 5, 2017
Formal debate
Against Gary Marcus · NYU Center for Mind, Brain and Consciousness
LeCun argued that a general learning principle can get AI there without much built-in structure; Marcus argued that deep learning will stay limited without more innate machinery.
The people on this list argue in public for a living. At SuperDebate you get the same stage: one question, a clear structure, and a room that votes. It is how you learn to win an argument without making enemies.
