NA ALUMS Charting the AI Frontier with Symon Perriman ’03
hardware planning and optimization
Technical Program Manager, Meta
train and serve larger AI models.
programs, helping Meta’s researchers This has included the LLaMA model (Meta’s version of ChatGPT) and
In 2006, Symon Perriman ’03 turned down an interview with a startup called “The Facebook.” Of course, Symon couldn’t have known at the time that that company would become the tech giant known today as Meta.
Meta’s GenAI chatbots, stickers, images and photo-editing tools across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp.
Still, after landing impressive stints at
focusing on Generative AI (GenAI).
Microsoft and Google, Symon got his
I’ve been at Meta for two and a half
second chance with “The Facebook”
years and had a similar role at Google
Q:
15 years later. He now works as a
for a year. Previously, I ran a sports
SP: AI has become the next technical
technical program manager at Meta
marketing startup called FanWide that
revolution that is changing the world,
and has found himself at the forefront
built AI computer vision solutions to
but because of its high cost and techni-
of the technical revolution that is
help with COVID-19 compliance at
cal complexity, it hasn’t been available
artificial intelligence (AI).
sports stadiums.
to the masses until recently. Generative
What do you think are the benefits of AI?
AI allows the public to access AI resources
Q:
What do you do in your current role at Meta?
Q:
In what ways have you worked with AI?
SP: I work with many teams across
SP: Within Meta’s GenAI team, I help
the company to solve their hardest AI
run one of the world’s most advanced
infrastructure problems, currently
AI platforms. I lead a few of the
and “generate” personalized responses to any type of request. The inputs and outputs could include text, images, video, audio or other formats.
Photo by Glynns Thomas
Symon Perriman ’03 32
LUMEN
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SPRING 2024