Meta is reportedly planning to acquire a 49% stake in Scale AI for $14.8 billion, according to The Information. This deal would place Scale AI’s CEO, Alexandr Wang, in a top position at Meta, and several Scale AI employees would join a new AI lab focused on developing ‘superintelligence.’ Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is heavily involved in assembling the team of AI researchers, even setting up a WhatsApp group called ‘Recruiting Party’ to personally reach out to potential recruits.
In other AI news, Reddit has sued Anthropic for allegedly training its AI models on personal user data without permission. Reddit claimed that Anthropic’s bot accessed its servers 100,000 times despite being told to stop. This lawsuit comes as Reddit continues to capitalize on its user data by striking licensing deals with OpenAI and Google.
OpenAI has made significant strides in enhancing ChatGPT’s functionality by allowing it to connect to external applications like Google Drive, Dropbox, and SharePoint. This update enables enterprise users to gain insights from internal documents through the chatbot. OpenAI has also reportedly reached $10 billion in annualized revenue through consumer product sales.
The AI startup scene is also seeing significant developments. Anysphere, a young AI coding startup, has raised $900 million at a $9.9 billion valuation and claims to have about $500 million in annualized revenue. The startup is betting on AI transforming software engineering by making it easier to program applications. Another enterprise AI startup, Glean, raised $150 million in Series F funding at a $7.2 billion valuation and has passed $100 million in annualized revenue.
Runway AI held its third annual AI film festival, showcasing the creative potential of AI in filmmaking. The winning film, ‘Total Pixel Space’ by Jacob Adler, explores the concept of image composition through pixels. TV networks and filmmakers are adopting AI technology to produce and edit content more quickly and cheaply, although some studios are hesitant to admit their use of AI due to potential backlash from creatives concerned about copyright issues.
However, not all AI implementations have been successful. The Department of Government Efficiency developed a faulty AI tool to review contracts at the Department of Veteran Affairs, which was prone to errors. In a separate incident, autonomous vehicles became targets during protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests in Los Angeles, with at least five Waymo driverless vehicles being vandalized and set ablaze.
