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Meta is reportedly cooling on the metaverse with planned 30% cuts in its virtual reality research department, Reality Labs, which shareholders seemingly support. Social media giant Meta is reportedly planning to scale back its metaverse spending by up to 30% and redirect the funds into virtual reality glasses and artificial intelligence. No final decision has been made yet, but budget cuts and possible layoffs are on the table for Meta’s Reality Labs division, mainly aimed at its virtual reality unit, which eats up the bulk of metaverse-related spending, Bloomberg and The New York Times reported on Thursday. The budget cuts could come as early as January, but Meta plans to redirect resources to a Reality Labs unit developing augmented reality glasses. Read more

ChatGPT has quietly turned into the “busiest hangout” spot on the internet. What began as a productivity tool now draws crowds like a digital piazza with more than 800 million registered users and around 125 million of them showing up daily. Average session time? Roughly 14 minutes. That’s the kind of attention Facebook hasn’t seen […] The post Why ChatGPT’s prompt box has Meta up at night appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Why is Meta allegedly pirating porn? Math suggests AI agents won’t take everyone’s jobs, AIs secretly trained to love owls, and more: AI Eye. A new lawsuit claims Meta has been secretly pirating porn for years from torrent sites using virtual private clouds in order to train its AI models. Strike 3 Holdings and Counterlife Media, which own porn sites attracting 25 million monthly visitors, have sued Facebooks parent company for almost $359 million for allegedly infringing on the copyright of 2,396 adult films that Meta is said to have downloaded since 2018. The allegations are similar to the lawsuit brought by well-known authors against Meta that claimed the tech giant pirated 81.7 terabytes of books only this case is much more interesting because its about porn. Strike 3 Holdings told the court it offers rare long cuts of natural, human-centric imagery showing parts of the body not found in regular videos and said it is concerned Meta will train its AIs to eventually create identical content for little to no...

Meta's latest AI hire follows several developments and partnerships aimed at making the tech giant a leader in the burgeoning sector. Tech company Meta has hired Trapit Bansal, a former key researcher at artificial intelligence company OpenAI, who was central to developing the firm's o1 reasoning AI model. Bansal is the latest ex-OpenAI researcher to join the Meta team, following the addition of Lucas Beyer, Alexander Kolesnikov, and Xiaohua Zhai, according to TechCrunch. The hires are part of Meta's push to expand its AI operations and overhaul the capabilities of its reasoning models by training its AI on real-world scenarios to cultivate intelligence. Meta chief AI scientist Yann LeCun previously said: Read more

“These plaintiffs made the wrong arguments,” Judge Chhabria wrote, as he ruled Meta’s AI training on their copyrighted books was fair use.

Uber has widened its AI ambitions, renaming its data-services division Uber AI Solutions and offering external access to proprietary datasets, clickworker labeling teams and project-automation software. The expansion has come as Meta’s Scale stake prompts model builders to seek neutral partners. The post Uber Races Into AI Data Labeling as Meta’s $14.8B Scale Deal Sparks Mass Defections – Who’s Next? appeared first on Cryptonews.

The ride-hailing giant has reportedly offered AI “coders for hire” since at least November. Ride-hailing giant Uber is promoting its data labeling services to potential clients following Meta’s 49% acquisition of Scale AI — a move that reportedly unsettled some companies previously partnered with Scale, including OpenAI and Google. In an interview with Fortune, Uber executive Megha Yethadka said the company is expanding its AI business by offering large-scale data sets and tools to organizations developing in-house AI models. This includes licensing Uber’s data labeling platform and related technologies to help customers build AI agents. “For Uber, our core has always been being the platform of choice for flexible on-demand work,” Yethadka said. “That extends itself really well to this business of digital tasks now.” Read more

OpenAI is dropping Scale AI from its data labeling suppliers days after the startup’s acquisition by Meta. OpenAI is scaling back its contracts with Scale AI, a data labeling startup recently acquired by social media giant Meta. According to a Thursday report from Bloomberg, the ChatGPT maker is winding down its reliance on the startup's data, a few days after Meta announced a $14.8 billion deal for a 49% ownership stake in Scale AI. The acquisition was Meta’s second-largest and will also have Scale CEO Alexandr Wang joining Meta’s experimental AI project. The companies announced the deal on June 12. Read more

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said Tuesday Facebook parent Meta is attempting to woo his employees with limited success.

Lawmakers asked Mark Zuckerberg whether Meta had had any influence on the GENIUS stablecoin bill and its plans to potentially issue its own digital currency. Update (June 11 at 10:50 pm UTC): This article has been updated to include a previous statement from Meta. With the US Senate expected to vote on legislation to regulate payment stablecoins soon, two senators called on Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to answer questions about the company’s potential plans to introduce another stablecoin. In a Wednesday letter to Zuckerberg, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Richard Blumenthal said it was “more critical than ever that Congress and the public fully understand the extent of Meta’s plans” for stablecoins, given the size of the tech company and the expected vote on the GENIUS Act in the Senate. Read more

Mark Zuckerberg is reportedly assembling a superintelligence group that will include Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang. Meta Platforms is reportedly acquiring a 49% stake in Scale AI, a leading data labeling company that powers many AI applications, as CEO Mark Zuckerberg seeks to strengthen Meta’s position in the competitive artificial intelligence landscape.  After days of speculation, The Information reported on Tuesday that Meta has finalized a $14.8 billion deal for a significant minority share in Scale AI.  According to sources familiar with the negotiations, the transaction was completed in cash and includes Scale AI’s CEO, Alexandr Wang, joining Meta as part of a new “Superintelligence” initiative. Read more

The case for holding Bitcoin on a firm’s balance sheet is compelling, CoinShares’ Butterfill told Cointelegraph, and “the pace of adoption is accelerating.” Strategy became the first publicly traded company to adopt Bitcoin as its primary treasury reserve asset in August 2020, but not many major tech firms have followed since.  Treasury reserves, sometimes called cash reserves, are held by corporations to fund short-term or emergency obligations. These are typically cash or cash equivalents like money market funds or three-month US Treasury bills. The social media giant Meta keeps $72 billion in liquid assets in its reserve. But at its annual meeting on May 28, shareholders turned back a proposal to assess whether Bitcoin (BTC) might qualify as a future treasury reserve asset. The proposal was dismissed by a ratio of 1,221 to 1. Read more

Meta shareholders shut down a proposal to assess whether Bitcoin should be added to its balance sheet, with just 0.08% of votes in favor of the idea. Meta shareholders have overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to assess whether the tech giant should add Bitcoin to its balance sheet. A “Bitcoin treasury assessment” proposal put before shareholders received 3.92 million votes in favor — a mere 0.08% of the total — while nearly 5 billion voters decided against the measure, a May 28 regulatory filing shows.  Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg controls 61% of the company’s voting power, according to an April regulatory statement, which could indicate that he voted against the proposal. Read more

Meta Platforms shareholders rejected a measure that urged the company to add Bitcoin (BTC) to its $72 billion cash pile, voting 4.98 billion shares against and 3.92 million for at the May 30 annual meeting, as reports surfaced. Abstentions totaled 8.86 million shares, while brokers withheld votes on 204.77 million shares. With fewer than 0.1% […] The post Meta shareholders reject Bitcoin treasury bid in landslide vote appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Meta could be the first US corporation of its scale to place Bitcoin (BTC) on its balance sheet, according to Bloomberg senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas. In a May 28 post on X, Balchunas argued that a move by a “Big Boy” company would validate corporate treasury adoption of the asset. He added that “it […] The post Bloomberg analyst foresees Meta as trailblazer in corporate Bitcoin integration appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Meta is exploring stablecoin-based payment infrastructure in a renewed effort to integrate blockchain technology into its platforms, Fortune reported on May 8, citing people familiar with the matter. According to the report, the tech giant is in preliminary discussions with multiple crypto firms to evaluate stablecoins as a mechanism for managing cross-border payouts. The discussions […] The post Meta exploring stablecoins for cross-border payouts in renewed crypto push appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Stablecoins continue to attract attention from big tech firms and legacy financial institutions, reacting to demand from retail investors. Tech company Meta is reportedly exploring integrating stablecoin payments into its platforms after a three-year hiatus from cryptocurrencies, Fortune reported, citing sources familiar with the matter. The Facebook parent held talks with several crypto infrastructure firms in consultation but has not chosen a decisive course of action, according to the report. One source said the company may take a multi-token approach and integrate support for popular stablecoins such as Tether's USDt (USDT), Circle's USD Coin (USDC) and others. Read more