Meta halts Mercor data work after breach, AI labs review ties

Meta has paused all its work with the data contracting firm Mercor while it investigates a major security breach that impacted the startup, according to two sources cited by DataBreaches[.]Net. The pause is said to be indefinite, and other major AI labs are reevaluating their work with Mercor as they assess the scope of the incident, according to people familiar with the matter.

Mercor is one of a few firms that OpenAI, Anthropic, and other AI labs rely on to generate training data for their models, hiring extensive networks of human contractors to generate bespoke datasets that are typically kept highly secret. AI labs are sensitive about this data because it can reveal to competitors—including other AI labs in America and China—key details about how they train AI models, according to the report.

It remains unclear at this time whether the data exposed in Mercor’s breach would meaningfully help a competitor, according to the stated sources. Read more at WIRED.