AI responses to some of our questions can sometimes surprise with their naturalness and relevance. Those of "Natasha," a virtual assistant developed by the British company Builder.ai, had won over more than just the first users, since even Microsoft was seduced by the startup to the point of participating in its financing. The problem: behind this impressive technology were actually some 700 engineers employed to play the role of luxury chatbots.
The London-based company Builder.ai, valued at more than $1.5 billion, offers AI-based solutions for developers. Its promise: "coding an application as easily as ordering a pizza." To help developers with their requests, Builder.ai notably offered a super-powerful virtual assistant, the famous "Natasha." As the company is in the eye of the storm and has just announced its bankruptcy, the Times of India reveals that Natasha was a vast scam. Behind every response from the virtual assistant was the coding work of a team of 700 people on the other side of the planet, in India, who were coding in real time.
From fraud to bankruptcy?
This revelation is the epilogue of a series of setbacks that began in 2019. At the time, the company, which was multiplying funding rounds in search of financing, was the subject of a rather unflattering article in the Wall Street Journal in which its technical skills in AI were questioned. This did not prevent Builder.ai from raising $445 million a few months later by winning stakes from Microsoft and the Qatar Investment Authority, among others.
Since then, Builder.ai has regularly been suspected of inflating its figures. An audit revealed a few months ago that its revenues barely exceeded $50 million, while its representatives were claiming a figure of $220 million to their investors. In the storm, founder Sachin Dev Duggal decided to leave his position as CEO before being replaced by Manpreet Ratia. The new strongman reportedly discovered the deception (and the millions of unpaid invoices to Amazon and Microsoft) upon taking office. It was he who made the decision to lay off nearly 1,000 employees two weeks ago, before announcing that Builder.ia was entering insolvency proceedings.
The fiasco of Builder.ai and its fake AI assistant, Natasha, is, to date, one of the most resounding examples of what is now called "AI washing," that is, attributing to an AI work performed by a human. In April, another fake AI, Nate, was singled out for the same reasons.
Source: Times of India
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