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Meta invests $14.3B in Scale AI to kick-start superintelligence lab

nytimes.com

271–280 of 507 posts

Re: Meta invests $14.3B in Scale AI to kick-start superintelligence lab

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scale has also built massive amounts of proprietary datasets that they license to the big players in training. Meta, Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, etc. all use Scale data in training. So, the play I’m guessing is to shut that tap off for everyone else now, and double down on using Scale to generate more proprietary datasets.

It's a smart purchase, it's just that I don't see how these datasets factor into super-intelligence. I don't think you can create a super-intelligent AI with more human data, even if it's high-quality data from paid human contributors. Unless we watered-down the definition of super-intelligent AI. To me, super-intelligence means an AI that has an intelligence that dwarfs anything theoretically possible from a human m…

> It's a smart purchase, it's just that I don't see how these datasets factor into super-intelligence.

It's a smart purchase for the data, and it's a roadblock for the other AI hyperscalers. Meta gets Scale's leading datasets and gets to lock out the other players from purchasing it. It slows down OpenAI, Anthropic, et al.

These are just good chess moves. The "super-intelligence" bit is just hype/spin for the journalists and layperson investors.

Re: Meta invests $14.3B in Scale AI to kick-start superintelligence lab

#272
post #85

The only way to understand this is by knowing: Meta already has two (!!) AI labs who are already at existential odds with one-another and both are in the process of failing spectacularly. One (FAIR) is lead by Rob Fergus (who? exactly!) because the previous lead quit. Relatively little gossip on that one other than top AI labs have their pick of outgoing talent. The other (GenAI) is lead by Ahmad Al-Dahle (who? exact…

Rob Fergus is one of the creators of FAIR. It makes sense for him to lead it.

Re: Meta invests $14.3B in Scale AI to kick-start superintelligence lab

#273
post #78
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reverse acquisition? IE, similar to how Disney "bought" Pixar, but much of Pixar's IP overshadows Disney's IP; or how Apple bought Next and the current MacOS is basically NextOS under the hood. It's a technique that companies do to avoid disruption: Buy early stage startups, and by the time they could "disrupt" the parent company, the parent company's management is ready to retire, and the former startup's management…

In what way does Pixar's IP overshadow Disney's? Listing the highest-grossing media franchises [1], Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh, Star Wars, and Disney Princesses are on #2-#5 respectively, while Pixar's top spot is #16 with Cars. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_media...

Because, in the 1990s, Pixar's IP was more popular than Disney's. The story (as I remember it from a Jobs biography) was that, in the Disney parks, there were longer lines for Pixar characters than Disney characters.

Someone in leadership (don't remember the name) basically swallowed pride and bought Pixar from Jobs. It was considered a "reverse acquisition" because Jobs had so much stock he technically controlled Disney afterwards.

Re: Meta invests $14.3B in Scale AI to kick-start superintelligence lab

#274
post #85

The only way to understand this is by knowing: Meta already has two (!!) AI labs who are already at existential odds with one-another and both are in the process of failing spectacularly. One (FAIR) is lead by Rob Fergus (who? exactly!) because the previous lead quit. Relatively little gossip on that one other than top AI labs have their pick of outgoing talent. The other (GenAI) is lead by Ahmad Al-Dahle (who? exact…

You forgot LeCunn, but yeah that guy's on its own death spiral.

No I didn’t. He is functionally irrelevant at Meta and he doesn’t actually lead anything.

Re: Meta invests $14.3B in Scale AI to kick-start superintelligence lab

#275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but this is a different value proposition. FB paid $1B for Instagram, which was trendy, growing fast, and already had 30 million users. FB paid $19B for Whatsapp, which was already established worldwide with ~400 million users. These acquisitions were very much in-line with FB's core product. The people saying it was risky were mostly just saying that it was a waste of money and that FB could have just beaten t…

> it was a waste of money and that FB could have just beaten their competition instead of buying them. Correction, people were saying that FB couldn't beat their competition and had to buy them.

If people were saying that there was no way to beat them, then Instagram and WhatsApp weren't bad acquisitions.

Re: Meta invests $14.3B in Scale AI to kick-start superintelligence lab

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know this?

One can only guess but if they were so subscribed with their existing clients why have they started focusing on much on government contracts?

contracts are higher margin and give consistent ARR compared to data labelling

Re: Meta invests $14.3B in Scale AI to kick-start superintelligence lab

#278
post #90
post #19

OpenAI uses scale via eg data made by humans through outlier. Part of this move could probably be seen as starving competition from data as much as buying talent at scale.

Every frontier lab has moved (or is moving) away from scale to other vendors/platforms/bespoke solutions.

What vendors or platforms are frontier labs moving to?

Re: Meta invests $14.3B in Scale AI to kick-start superintelligence lab

#279
post #272
post #85

The only way to understand this is by knowing: Meta already has two (!!) AI labs who are already at existential odds with one-another and both are in the process of failing spectacularly. One (FAIR) is lead by Rob Fergus (who? exactly!) because the previous lead quit. Relatively little gossip on that one other than top AI labs have their pick of outgoing talent. The other (GenAI) is lead by Ahmad Al-Dahle (who? exact…

Rob Fergus is one of the creators of FAIR. It makes sense for him to lead it.

Lead it where?

Re: Meta invests $14.3B in Scale AI to kick-start superintelligence lab

#280
post #92

Anyone know what scale does these days beyond labeling tools that would make them this interesting to Meta? Data labeling tools seem more of a traditional software application and not much to do with AI models themselves that would be somewhat easily replicated, but guessing my impression is out of date. Also now apparently their CEO is leaving [1], so the idea that they were super impressed with him doesn't seem to…

they use people for 3 world countries for labeling and fixing models responses, i guess the value is in the human capital
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