Can $1 billion turn startup Scale AI into an AI data juggernaut?

livemint.com:

WSJ: You’ve talked about being a platform that enables “artificial general intelligence," or AGI, where a machine can learn and think like a human. What does it mean for Scale AI, and how do you work with AI labs such as OpenAI and Anthropic? Karunamurthy: We really have changed our role to being the ‘data foundry for AGI.’ This is a journey we’re going to be on for the next couple of years. We work pretty much across a range of all the large [AI] research labs, at some level or another.

We’re starting to see a lot of interest from them, not just in specific capabilities, but how can you get a model that generally reasons about the world and answers questions reliably at the level like a human being can be trusted? That’s a really huge impact on society. As the research labs try to keep their eye on the ball, we are also keeping our eye on the ball. WSJ: Why is data so important for advancing generative AI, AGI and other future technologies? Karunamurthy: As those models get more powerful and can store more knowledge and reasoning, the amount of data it takes to saturate that model increases exponentially.

That data needs to be diverse. We often now are being asked to power sophisticated data sets about how the world around us works. How do you answer a question about this table? Will the coffee stay in this cup if it tilts at a certain angle? That’s really important if we’re going to get robots to interact with the world around us.

But the data is still lacking. Even if you believe we’re still far off from AGI, there’s still going to be advancements in the next few years with embodied agents able to use robotic arms or hands around a physical environment. WSJ: What’s unique about your recent $1 billion fundraise?