OpenAI Winds Down Involvement With Scale AI

OpenAI is reportedly phasing out its involvement with data-labeling startup Scale AI due to Scale’s new ties to Meta, an OpenAI rival.

Scale provided only a small fraction of the data needed by OpenAI, and the companies’ relationship was already winding down over the past six to 12 months as OpenAI sought different sorts of data from other suppliers, Bloomberg reported Wednesday (June 18), citing an OpenAI spokesperson.

The OpenAI spokesperson’s confirmation of the move came days after Meta took a 49% stake in Scale and hired its founder, Alexandr Wang, to join Meta’s new “superintelligence” unit, according to the report.

While Scale has provided data to both Meta and OpenAI, the deal raised concerns that Meta would be able to access information about rival companies’ artificial intelligence (AI) development efforts, the report said.

Scale announced in a June 12 press release that it received a “significant investment” from Meta, that the companies’ agreement will “substantially expand” their commercial relationship, and that Wang will join Meta while also continuing to serve as a director on Scale’s board of directors.

The company said in the release: “Scale remains an independent leader in AI, committed to providing industry-leading AI solutions and safeguarding customer data. Having played a pivotal role in accelerating AI development from its inception, Scale will continue to partner with leading AI labs, multinational enterprises and governments to deliver expert data and technology solutions through every phase of AI’s evolution.”

It was reported June 8 that Meta was weighing a multibillion-dollar investment in Scale that would be the company’s largest-ever outside expenditure on AI and a rare move for a company that has largely depended on internal research.

Scale’s data labeling services help businesses train machine learning models, and the company has been a crucial beneficiary of the generative AI boom.

It was reported Wednesday that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman accused Meta of making “giant offers” of $100 million to poach OpenAI workers as Meta tries to catch up in the AI race.

“I’ve heard that Meta thinks of us as their biggest competitor,” Altman said.