Tag Archives: Meta

Former WhatsApp security boss in lawsuit likens Meta’s culture to a “cult”

The letter outlined not only the improper access engineers had to WhatsApp user data, but a variety of other shortcomings, including a “failure to inventory user data,” as required under privacy laws in California, the European Union, and the FTC settlement, failure to locate data storage, an absence of systems for monitoring user data access,… Read More »

Zuckerberg’s AI hires disrupt Meta with swift exits and threats to leave

“While TBD Labs is still relatively new, we believe it has the greatest compute-per-researcher in the industry, and that will only increase,” Meta said. Wang and other former Scale staffers have struggled with some of the idiosyncratic ways of working at Meta, according to someone familiar with his thinking, for example having to adjust to… Read More »

Is the AI bubble about to pop? Sam Altman is prepared either way.

Still, the coincidence between Altman’s statement and the MIT report reportedly spooked tech stock investors earlier in the week, who have already been watching AI valuations climb to extraordinary heights. Palantir trades at 280 times forward earnings. During the dot-com peak, ratios of 30 to 40 times earnings marked bubble territory. The apparent contradiction in… Read More »

At $250 million, top AI salaries dwarf those of the Manhattan Project and the Space Race

Even Space Race salaries were far cheaper The Apollo program offers another striking comparison. Neil Armstrong, the first human to walk on the moon, earned about $27,000 annually—roughly $244,639 in today’s money. His crewmates Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins made even less, earning the equivalent of $168,737 and $155,373, respectively, in today’s dollars. Current NASA… Read More »

AI in Wyoming may soon use more electricity than state’s human residents

Wyoming’s data center boom Cheyenne is no stranger to data centers, having attracted facilities from Microsoft and Meta since 2012 due to its cool climate and energy access. However, the new project pushes the state into uncharted territory. While Wyoming is the nation’s third-biggest net energy supplier, producing 12 times more total energy than it… Read More »

After AI setbacks, Meta bets billions on undefined “superintelligence”

Meta has developed plans to create a new artificial intelligence research lab dedicated to pursuing “superintelligence,” according to reporting from The New York Times. The social media giant chose 28-year-old Alexandr Wang, founder and CEO of Scale AI, to join the new lab as part of a broader reorganization of Meta’s AI efforts under CEO… Read More »

Meta’s surprise Llama 4 drop exposes the gap between AI ambition and reality

Meta constructed the Llama 4 models using a mixture-of-experts (MoE) architecture, which is one way around the limitations of running huge AI models. Think of MoE like having a large team of specialized workers; instead of everyone working on every task, only the relevant specialists activate for a specific job. For example, Llama 4 Maverick… Read More »

2024: The year AI drove everyone crazy

Microsoft Windows AI is watching A screenshot of Microsoft’s new “Recall” feature in action. Credit: Microsoft In an era where many people already feel like they have no privacy due to tech encroachments, Microsoft dialed it up to an extreme degree in May. That’s when Microsoft unveiled a controversial Windows 11 feature called “Recall” that… Read More »

Claude AI to process secret government data through new Palantir deal

An ethical minefield Since its founders started Anthropic in 2021, the company has marketed itself as one that takes an ethics- and safety-focused approach to AI development. The company differentiates itself from competitors like OpenAI by adopting what it calls responsible development practices and self-imposed ethical constraints on its models, such as its “Constitutional AI”… Read More »

Meta’s new “Movie Gen” AI system can deepfake video from a single photo

On Friday, Meta announced a preview of Movie Gen, a new suite of AI models designed to create and manipulate video, audio, and images, including creating a realistic video from a single photo of a person. The company claims the models outperform other video-synthesis models when evaluated by humans, pushing us closer to a future… Read More »