Meta Builds AI Supercomputer With Access To User Data Of Millions; Should We Worry?

Meta Supercomputer Is Here

Presently, the Meta supercomputer is still under development. Facebook's parent company said it would be the fastest in the world once it's fully built, which is expected around the middle of this year. That said, Meta didn't disclose many details of the new AI supercomputer. For one, we don't know where it is located or the expenses for building it.

What we know is that the Meta supercomputer is already up and running, despite still being a work in progress. Meta calls it the AI Research SuperCluster or RCS, which the company believes will help AI researchers. The idea is to build "new and better AI models that can learn from examples and work across hundreds of different languages simultaneously and analyze text, images, and video together."

What Makes AI Supercomputers Different?

Traditional supercomputers are immensely powerful, designed and built to handle complex calculations that are beyond your regular home computers' capabilities. That said, Meta's RCS seems to be different than regular supercomputers.

To note, conventional supercomputers rely on the performance of graphics-processing chips. Tuomas Sandholm, a computer science professor and co-director of the AI center at Carnegie Mellon University explains that these supercomputers are handy for running "deep learning" algorithms that can understand what's in an image, analyze text, and translate between languages.

On the other hand, the Meta AI Research SuperCluster is different as it aims to build new AI models. "RSC will help Meta's AI researchers build new and better AI models that can learn from trillions of examples; work across hundreds of different languages; develop new augmented reality tools; and much more," said Kevin Lee and Shubho Sengupta in a blog post.

Other companies like Microsoft and Nvidia have also built similar AI supercomputers. However, the Meta RCS is going to be a tad bit different as it aims to enhance the user experience in the metaverse.

Meta RCS: Should We Worry?

Meta and its subsidiaries like Facebook, Instagram are infamous for data mismanagement and other anti-trust lawsuits. Now, we have the Meta RCS supercomputer with AI and access to data of millions of users. Naturally, it raises concern among many.

For one, RCS is said to train a range of systems content moderation algorithms used to detect hate speech on Facebook and Instagram. Detecting hate speech is surely a good factor here, something that's need of the hour.

At the same time, for the first time, Meta is putting customer data on an AI supercomputer. This could go to leaps and bounds, especially in the rise of the metaverse. Presently, everyone is curious to see how the new AI supercomputer will turn out. More debates of its pros and cons are expected to pop up in the coming days.