Artificial intelligence is here to stay, but workers\u2026 more and more are being laid off. That is what has happened with Scale AI, the startup in which Mark Zuckerberg invested no less than 14.3 billion dollars (!!!). They have been forced to cut absolutely the entire team from their Dallas office. A restructuring (they say) of the team known as NPO (New Projects Organization). A group of more than 12 people who were fired from their jobs only to be offered their positions again\u2026 as freelancers!!!<\/p>\n
Goodbye to a whole team<\/p>\n
The team (NPO) had a task: to train and improve the writing skills of the company\u2019s chatbots. The problem was that the better the AI chatbots became, the less they needed human participation, until one fine day they received an email saying that the program was closing due to a \u201ctechnical reorientation.\u201d Yes.<\/p>\n
Scale AI spokesperson Natalia Montalvo stated that the company decided to redirect its efforts toward more advanced and specialized programs, and that they had only closed a small experimental program (which supported 12 people\u2026).<\/p>\n
The reality is that the more \u201cbasic\u201d jobs, such as evaluating AI responses or reviewing texts, now required knowledge in specific areas such as medicine or robotics, and these twelve workers were simply in the way.<\/p>\n
Goodbye, hello, hello??<\/p>\n
An internal email leaked by Business Insider colleagues revealed that the employees received four weeks of severance pay, medical coverage until October, and\u2026 an invitation to join Outlier. Yes, a microtasking platform owned by the same company (Scale AI), this time to work independently. Wow.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to make sure you are aware of the alternative opportunities offered by the company,\u201d read the message from HireArt (the agency that hired the team).<\/p>\n
In other words, they were no longer part of the team\u2026 but could continue working for them. On commission and, of course, without a fixed contract.<\/p>\n
The new (less glamorous) phase of AI<\/p>\n
After the initial boom of artificial intelligence, many companies are cutting teams and readjusting priorities. Even xAI (Elon Musk\u2019s company) has had to reduce AI tutors to focus on more technical profiles.<\/p>\n
We assume it is the logic of the process: less quantity and more quality in the data they provide.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe future of model training depends on experts who bring professional judgment, not on large teams doing repetitive tasks,\u201d said Alexandr Wang.
\nAnd Zuckerberg?<\/p>\n
Zuckerberg\u2019s entry into Scale AI\u2019s capital marked a turning point, of course\u2014it was 14.3 billion dollars, which is no small thing.<\/p>\n
But the layoffs in Dallas make it clear that not even all the money in the world guarantees job stability for workers\u2026 and that the same employees who helped train AIs are now being replaced by them\u2026 just like in I, Robot!!<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst you poison the bird but act as if you are providing treatment to it afterwards\u2026 this is how all organizations are acting now after forcefully laying off employees,\u201d complained a user.<\/p>\n
AI, efficiency, and precariousness<\/p>\n
AI only brings more precariousness. Efficiency, yes, of course, but also precariousness. Just ask these twelve workers.<\/p>\n
Companies want the same efficiency or more at zero cost, and human capital already bothers them, which is why they cut jobs. First, they use workers to \u201clearn,\u201d but once they are no longer needed, they simply throw them away. And more and more people are working on projects without security or job stability. Then we complain that the world is not moving forward\u2026<\/p>\n
Scale AI insists that its restructuring will not affect the quality of its services, but it does affect how we understand work: fewer permanent jobs. That\u2019s all<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Artificial intelligence is here to stay, but workers\u2026 more and more are being laid off. That is what…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":249933,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,181,507,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-249932","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}