Scale AI, belonging 49% to Meta, has hired tens of thousands of workers supposedly for artificial intelligence education. However, according to Guardian's revelation, they actually collect personal data from Instagram profiles, copy foreign content and describe inappropriate images. Workers, many of whom are desperate for extra income, are constantly monitored through software. The company's co-founder, Alexandre Wang, a former younger self-made billionaire, is currently Meta's director of artificial intelligence. The company cooperates with the Pentagon, Google and other major customers.
Analyticalally:
Company partly owned by Meta has hired tens of thousands «experts» for the education of AI, but who are actually invited to collect personal data from Instagram profiles, to work on foreign content or to put captions on images with dog stools, reveals the Guardian.
Scale AI, which belongs by 49% to Meta and among others has contracts with the Pentagon and American artificial intelligence and defence companies, has created the Outlier platform with which it asks experts in fields such as medicine, physics and finance in order to improve artificial intelligence models.
«Become the expert AI learns from » says the platform in Her website.
Workers on the platform told the newspaper that reality is far from described. Many described one «morally uncomfortable» a situation in which they are forced to collect personal data, or decipher dialogues in erotic films.
«I don't think people have realized that there's someone in an office in a random place looking at your profile [on Instagram] and using it to produce data on AI» said a worker, who was invited to collect images of users and their friends.
Alexandre Wang, co-founder of Scale AI, is currently Director AI in Meta Platforms
Many of the ten people who spoke to the Guardian had other main jobs, but needed extra money. «Many of us were really desperate.» said one.
And the case of Scale AI is not unique: according to Glenn Danas of Clarkson law firm, hundreds of thousands of people around the world are currently working on platforms like Outlier.
Workers of Scale AI, also known as «Taskers», stated that they were under permanent monitoring through software «Hubstaff», which received snapshots of their screen when visiting websites. The company argues that the system is used to calculate workers' remuneration rather than to monitor them.
Some tasker also stated that they suspected of going through multiple interviews just to gather material for AI training.
Although the company had assured that the work was not about naked images, violence, or blood, some tasker were invited to decipher erotic films or describe videos with people who vomited. Guardia saw pictures of dog stools for which descriptions were sought.
Source not named however stated that workers are not obliged to complete work that makes them uncomfortable and that Scale AI does not process pornographic content or sexual exploitation material for children.
The co-founder and former CEO of Scale AI, Alexandre Wang, was until 2025 «World's newest self-made billionaire», according to Forbes, and is currently Meta's director of artificial intelligence.
Scale AI has collaborated among other things with Google, the American defence ministry and Qatar's government. An OpenAI spokesman said his company discontinued the partnership in 2025.
