In June that year, Meta acquired a 49% stake in Scale AI to reboot its AI efforts for a whopping $14.8B, and brought in Scale AI’s CEO, Alexandr Wang to take over Meta’s AI strategy. [...] Based on the investment made into Scale AI and Wang, it’s pretty clear that Meta — and Zuckerberg — is determined to build a state-of-the-art LLM that can be competitive with the latest versions of Claude and ChatGPT. But Meta has to start pretty much from scratch, and it’s up to Alexandr Wang to deliver. [...] Zuckerberg has full control over the business, and has made the decisions to reallocate a good part of engineering folks to data labeling, to roll out tracking software, and to lay off 10% of staff when Meta achieved record revenue and profits. As the CEO, the buck clearly stops with him. But it’s hard to unsee that — outside of layoffs — everything that Meta is doing is taken from the Scale AI playbook, and that surely comes from Wang.

“promises to boost productivity by taking over mundane tasks, [but] frequently forces workers to adapt to the speed and demands of machines, rather than machines being designed to support those who work. As a result, contrary to the advertised benefits of AI, current approaches to technology can paradoxically de-skill workers, subject them to automated surveillance and relegate them to rigid and repetitive tasks. The need to keep up with the pace of technology can erode workers’ sense of agency and stifle the innovative abilities they are expected to bring to their work.”