Meta’s $15B investment in Scale AI marks a pivotal shift in its AI strategy—and global tech positioning. On Bloomberg Live, Alina Timofeeva explored how Meta, unlike its Big Tech rivals, lacks a cloud arm and is now leaning into infrastructure via Scale AI’s vast structured datasets.
This move aims to boost AI reliability in sensitive domains such as military and regulated sectors. Rather than building alone, Meta is leveraging Scale AI’s capabilities to accelerate safe and powerful AI deployments across its ecosystem.
The emerging “Defense Llama” initiative signals Meta’s pivot toward national security, potentially to gain favor with regulators. But this raises critical concerns, including Scale AI’s reliance on underpaid gig workers for data labeling, often without visibility or protections. “As AI becomes a geo-strategic asset, the ethics of invisible human labor and data privacy must not be ignored,” said Timofeeva.
But the concerns go far beyond labor. Timofeeva warns that as AI becomes embedded in military systems, society must grapple with profound risks:
• Who is accountable for autonomous targeting decisions?
• Will defense technologies spill over into surveillance, policing, and border control — affecting civilian life without consent?
• How do we govern systems that are rapidly evolving beyond the reach of existing regulation?
“We’re not just witnessing a race in AI capability,” she added, “but a quiet reordering of control. This isn’t just about faster models, it’s about who governs the systems behind them, and at what cost.” Timofeeva emphasized that without robust, human-centered governance frameworks, society risks opening Pandora’s box, with no clarity on who controls what’s inside. Regulation must evolve in parallel with innovation, ensuring AI delivers value safely, ethically, and securely.
