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Meta will be making cuts on its team working on AI. Superintelligence Labs The New York Times reports that the tech company co-founded by billionaire Mark Zuckerberg was ramping up its effort to lead in AI, which caused it to take on more employees than needed, s ources close to the matter explained. Now, 600 workers in its AI division, Superintelligence Labs, have been laid off. Over the past three years, the company has been gearing up to compete with Google, OpenAI, and others, Axios reports. “For our superintelligence effort, I’m focused on building the most elite and talent-dense team in the industry,” Zuckerberg said on Threads on July 14. “We’re also going to invest hundreds of billions of dollars into compute to build superintelligence. We have the capital from our business to do this.” Meta Is Reportedly Laying Off 600 AI Workers Teams specifically said to be impacted will be those working in Meta’s FAIR AI research, product-related AI, and AI infrastructure units, which is...
Dr. Setor Zilevu wants to be a champion for the underdogs. Born in Ghana and raised in Virginia as the youngest sibling, he recalls going against the grain. His brothers and father were engineers, and he initially sought to pursue a career in neuroscience, despite always having an interest in technology. However, after dissecting an animal, medicine did not feel like the right fit, and he pivoted career plans in his first year at Virginia Tech. “Maybe being a neurosurgeon might not be the best career path for me,” Zilevu told AFROTECH™. His brothers encouraged him to change his major to computer engineering, as they remembered how he built his own Sony PlayStation to play “Dragon Ball Z” as a kid, when his parents wouldn’t make the purchase. He earned his bachelor’s degree and went on to pursue a master’s at Virginia Tech as well, but then switched to computer science in 2017, with the support of a GEM Fellowship Program. He had originally also applied to the University of Southern...
Plans for Meta to build an AI data center in rural Louisiana have been approved, People reports. The 4-million-square-foot facility will be located in Richland Parish, a farming community of 20,000 people. According to The Wired, Louisiana’s Public Service Commission approved project plans in a meeting held on Aug. 20 for three natural gas turbines from Entergy to power the data center, which will require over 2 gigawatts. The vote was 4-1. Residents in the community are concerned about the decision, which they say seemed rushed, citing an increase in energy bills and water shortages. The Wired states Meta will finance the first 15 years of a 30-year loan for the gas plants’ construction, while residents will bear the cost of a $550 million transmission line. “Meta is directly paying for the infrastructure required to interconnect and serve them, which protects other customers from paying that cost,” Entergy told People. “Meta’s electric payments to Entergy will lower what customers...
Meta is doubling down on wearable tech. On Sept. 17, CEO Mark Zuckerberg introduced the company’s next-generation of smart glasses, complete with a tiny built-in display that brings messages, navigation, video calls, and artificial intelligence (AI) tools directly into a user’s line of sight, CNN reports. The announcement came during Meta’s annual Connect event in Menlo Park, CA, where the company also revealed updates to its Quest 3 headsets and the launch of other new wearables. According to CNN, the smart glasses highlight Meta’s ongoing push to make AI part of daily life while competing with other tech giants like Google, Samsung, and Amazon. Meta Ray-Ban Display Glasses The highlight of the event was the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses, which feature a small screen in the inside right lens. According to CNN, the display appears to float in front of a user’s environment, making it possible to view texts, take video calls, watch Instagram Reels, and even see live captioning and...
Instagram has started rolling out new features aimed at helping people connect in more personal and interactive ways. Among the latest updates, according to a news release from Meta Platforms, Inc., is a location-sharing tool called the Instagram map, along with new reposting capabilities and a dedicated Friends tab in Reels. Here’s what’s changing and how to use these features. Instagram Map: Real-Time Location Sharing With Friends View this post on Instagram A post shared by Adam Mosseri (@mosseri) The new map feature allows Instagram users to share their live location with a selected group of friends, per the release. It’s opt-in only, and you decide who sees your location. Once activated, your real-time location updates only when you open the app. Users can also see friends’ locations if they’ve chosen to share. The map also highlights public content posted near a specific location, the company shared in the release. This includes tagged Reels, Stories, feed posts, and Notes...
Editorial Note: Opinions and thoughts are the author’s own and not those of AFROTECH™. Learning how to code has been centered as the most probable path to prosperity since Mark Zuckerberg rang the bell as Facebook went public in 2012. After the success of Zuckerberg and Meta , being able to learn how to code was marketed by the public and private sectors as a path to not only financial stability but also outsized prosperity. The number of computer science graduates has more than doubled over the past decade from 51,696 to 112,720 when comparing the 2013-2014 academic year to the 2022-2023 academic year, according to the National Student Clearing House, a nonprofit organization that serves as the central source for educational reporting, verification and research across the U.S. The increased focus on computer science makes sense when you learn that computer science graduates also have an average starting salary of $77,000, while the average recent graduate is $68,400, according to...
Meta Platforms Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is taking a highly personal approach to what could become the company’s boldest artificial intelligence (AI) play yet. Frustrated with Meta’s current progress in AI, Zuckerberg is forming a new elite unit internally dubbed a “superintelligence” team, Bloomberg reports . His goal is to achieve artificial general intelligence (AGI) AI systems that can perform human-level tasks across domains. In recent weeks, Zuckerberg has hosted top AI researchers and engineers at his California homes in Lake Tahoe and Palo Alto, according to the outlet, pitching them directly on his vision. Around 50 new hires will form a group that will closely operate under Zuckerberg’s supervision at Meta’s headquarters in Menlo Park, CA. Insiders told Bloomberg that the Meta chief is personally selecting talent and serving as the primary point of contact during outreach. A $10 Billion Investment And A Strategic Ally In Scale AI Meta is reportedly building its...
Meta Platforms Inc. is reportedly in negotiations to invest over $10 billion in Scale AI, a rapidly emerging player in the artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem, known for its data labeling services and model training, according to Bloomberg. If completed, the multi-billion-dollar deal would rank among the largest funding rounds ever for a private company and would be Meta’s largest external AI investment to date, the outlet reports. The move reflects Meta’s growing ambition to control the AI market, where tech giants are competing for the best language models to develop and implement across platforms and products. What Does Scale AI Do? Under the direction of CEO Alexandr Wang, Scale AI provides high-quality labeled data essential for training advanced AI models for major players, including Microsoft and OpenAI. In 2024, the company brought in roughly $870 million in revenue and is on track to more than double that to $2 billion in 2025, Bloomberg previously reported. Much of...
Editorial Note: Opinions and thoughts are the author’s own and not those of AFROTECH™. The Trump administration’s anti-DEI crusade has now come for artificial intelligence (AI). Over the past several months, tech companies have retracted their previous commitments to DEI to comply with Trump’s executive order. Now, according to AP, both the administration and the Republican majority of Congress claim that AI is woke. “Wokeness,” or “woke,” is a term derived from African American Vernacular English to refer to being aware of social and racial injustice. It was a positive thing seen as early as the 1930s, or with people asking someone to “stay woke” from the 1970s well into the 2010s. That is until conservatives turned the word into a negative. Now, wokeness is seen as a negative thing, but only because they don’t want the public to be aware of the injustices they are committing currently. Artificial intelligence can’t be woke — it’s a thing that only operates in a way that it is...
The Primary School, a tuition-free private institution co-founded in 2016 by Priscilla Chan, the wife of Mark Zuckerberg , to support diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) values, is set to close at the end of the 2025–2026 school year. According to a statement on its website announcing the closure, Chan and late educator Meredith Liu established the school, which has campuses in East Palo Alto and East Bay, CA , “on the guiding principle that raising a child is a team effort” and the decision to close came “after much deliberation.” “Too often, our country’s systems of care are siloed and don’t adequately address a child’s varied needs,” the statement read. “The Primary School model breaks down those silos by bringing together the adults in a child’s life — including parents, educators, and health providers — starting from an early age.” The statement continued, “…This was a very difficult decision, and we are committed to ensuring a thoughtful and supportive transition for...
Editorial Note: Opinions and thoughts are the author’s own and not those of AFROTECH™. Significant layoffs have been a consistent theme throughout the world of work for over three years. Whether you work in tech, media, or finance you have seen the news or know of those who have been impacted. Gone is the employment heyday of the pandemic, when firms across the board ramped up their hiring efforts in 2020 and 2021. This led to people embracing new opportunities and getting bumps in compensation that were not previously available. Unfortunately, when the boosts to businesses and balance sheets went away, firms started laying off their workforces in droves. Initially, the reasons behind the cuts were due to overhiring, and companies were looking to streamline their workforces and management in order to move the organizations more nimbly. The media started to refer to it as a “White-Collar Recession” because while other sectors like hospitality and health services saw employment...
Meta has issued a harsh reality check to its employees. Business Insider shared insights from a leaked all-hands recording, revealing the company’s vision for the future. Among the key takeaways was an ambitious plan for a “highly intelligent and personalized” digital assistant, which is anticipated to reach 1 billion users. “I think whoever gets there first is going to have a long-term, durable advantage towards building one of the most important products in history,” Zuckerberg explained in the recording. He also addressed the company’s decision to steer clear from third-party fact-checkers in place of the community notes system and changes in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Meta is among the major companies that have retracted its policies, adhering to conservative agendas. As AFROTECH™ previously told you, Meta dismantled its programs tied to DEI and stopped the initiative that required it to consider hiring diverse candidates in every open position. “The way...
Meta is being sued for allegedly directly contributing to education inequities in Black communities. A lawsuit filed by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, and Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel LLP on behalf of the Equal Rights Center (ERC) cites that Meta’s algorithm has shown bias by directing ads for for-profit colleges and universities to Black communities. In contrast, more ads featuring public and nonprofit colleges and universities were shown to white users. “Relegating Black students to receive information about for-profit schools, which often provide lower quality education at greater financial cost, also sends a negative message about who belongs in which types of institutions,” a statement from an email sent to AFROTECH™ by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights read. The difference between the two types of institutions is that for-profit colleges focus on generating profits...
Editorial Note: Opinions and thoughts are the author’s own and not those of AFROTECH™. On February 1st, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to impose tariffs on America’s biggest trade partners: Mexico, Canada, and China. Canada and Mexico were supposed to face a 25% tariff, while China received a 10% tax. In response, Canada, Mexico, and China announced that they would retaliate by imposing their own tariffs on American goods. On February 10, China will hit the US with a 15% tariff on coal and a 10% tariff on crude oil, farm equipment, and some vehicles. The Trump administration has prioritized tariffs as a key policy focus, despite warnings from economic experts about their potential negative impact on the economy. Many voters supported Trump due to his economic promises, but since taking office, several of his policy decisions have contributed to rising costs of living. As of last week, tariffs on Canada and Mexico have been postponed until March, as both countries...
Editorial Note: Opinions and thoughts are the author’s own and not those of AFROTECH™. Just two weeks into his presidency, the Trump administration has already decreed several executive orders to undo much of former President Joe Biden’s work in the past four years. As many predicted, President Donald Trump has come after DEI initiatives , signing an executive order to remove all DEI programs within the Federal government. Corporations like JP Morgan Chase & Co, Costco , and Goldman Sachs have all stated that they plan to retain their corporate DEI programs and continue with business as usual. However, other big retailers like Walmart , Meta, McDonald’s, and Target have rolled back their previous DEI promises in accordance with the Trump administration. In recent years, corporate DEI initiatives have faced increasing attacks, with right-wing critics arguing that efforts to promote diversity are discriminatory against white people. Many corporations began implementing diversity,...
