In an internal post published last month, Meta informed its U.S. employees that it would be making a change affecting tens of thousands of them.
Meta stated that data typed by employees on their computers, mouse movements, click points, and what they viewed on the screen would be tracked. The goal, the company explained, was to acquire employee data so that Meta’s artificial intelligence models could learn “how people actually perform daily tasks using computers” – writes the New York Times.
EMPLOYEE PROTESTS AND INTERNAL REACTIONS
Many workers immediately rebelled. In online comments, they denounced the tracking as a privacy violation, calling it antisocial and insensitive. “This really makes me uncomfortable,” wrote a technical manager in a comment responding to the announcement, viewed by the Nyt. “How can we refuse?” “There is no option to disable this feature on the company laptop,” replied Andrew Bosworth, Meta’s technology head. According to the messages, employees reacted by posting more than 100 angry and surprised emojis.
ZUCKERBERG’S STRATEGY ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s CEO, has bet the future of his company on artificial intelligence, integrating this powerful technology into apps like Facebook and Instagram and investing hundreds of billions of dollars in developing AI models and data centers. However, as the Silicon Valley company seeks to transform from an internet company to an AI-focused organization, its adoption of this technology has proven clumsy and, at times, decidedly problematic.
Meta is pushing its 78,000 employees to adopt AI tools and is considering their use of this technology in performance evaluations. The company also monitors employees’ computer work to feed and train its AI models. Additionally, it is reducing staff to offset AI expenses, announcing last month a 10% cut in its workforce. This has generated anger and anxiety among employees, waiting to learn if they will be affected by the layoffs, scheduled for May 20, according to 11 current and former Meta employees.
DISILLUSIONMENT AND IMPACT ON EMPLOYEES
Some have stated they no longer consider Meta a place to build a long career. Others, instead, were looking for a new job or trying to make it clear they wanted to be laid off to receive severance pay, the same employees said. “It is incredibly demoralizing,” wrote an employee involved in user research in an internal post viewed by the Times. Meta’s difficulties offer a preview of what might happen in other tech companies as they increasingly integrate artificial intelligence into their workplaces. Microsoft, Block, and Coinbase have recently announced layoffs or exit incentives, as AI has transformed the world of work.
AI AND WORK TRANSFORMATION IN TECH
This technology has proven particularly disruptive for tech companies because AI tools are useful for generating code, which was typically written by software engineers who are the backbone of many digital activities. “Artificial intelligence can potentially make everyone better programmers and help them do much more with fewer resources, but consequently, it also makes daily work life more intense,” said Leo Boussioux, professor of information systems at the University of Washington. “There is still no manual for using AI in the workplace.”
WHAT META SAID ABOUT MONITORING
In a statement, Tracy Clayton, Meta spokesperson, said the purpose of the new employee monitoring program is to train the company’s AI products. “Security measures are in place to protect sensitive content, and data is not used for any other purpose,” she said. Reuters and The Information had already reported some details related to Meta’s internal AI initiative.
META’S TURN TOWARD AI AFTER CHATGPT
Meta began reorienting towards artificial intelligence shortly after OpenAI launched the ChatGPT chatbot in 2022. Last summer, Zuckerberg invested billions to create a “superintelligence” lab, a futuristic form of AI capable of serving as the ultimate personal assistant, and renewed the AI division. Zuckerberg, 41, has spoken extensively about how superintelligence will improve people’s lives.
Meta began reorienting towards artificial intelligence shortly after OpenAI launched the ChatGPT chatbot in 2022. Last summer, Zuckerberg invested billions to create a “superintelligence” lab, a futuristic form of AI capable of serving as the ultimate personal assistant, and renewed the AI division. Zuckerberg, 41, has spoken extensively about how superintelligence will improve people’s lives. In March, Meta held “AI Transformation Weeks” for its employees, according to five current and former employees.
INTERNAL TRAINING AND AI TOOLS
The goal was to teach employees how to use AI programming tools and AI agents, digital assistants capable of performing tasks autonomously. Product designers, who define the appearance of products and user interaction with them, were asked to try programming with AI, while programmers were asked to use AI to design products. Meta also introduced internal dashboards to monitor employees’ “token” consumption, a unit of AI usage roughly equivalent to four characters of text, according to four people. […]
LAYOFFS, UNCERTAINTY, AND INTERNAL REACTIONS
“This data is subject to very strict control,” Mr. Bosworth replied. “There will be no risk of information leaks.” Two days later, Meta announced the layoff of about 8,000 people by the end of the month. The cuts will allow the company “to offset other investments we are making,” said Janelle Gale, Meta’s head of human resources, in an internal message. She added, “I know this leaves everyone in a state of uncertainty for almost a month, which is incredibly destabilizing.”
Some employees shared layoff guides and nihilistic memes. “It doesn’t matter,” read a meme shared internally. Employees created at least three websites counting down the days until the May 20 layoffs, and the header of one of these sites reads: “Big Beautiful Layoff,” a play on the 2025 internal policy law that President Trump called “One Big Beautiful Bill.”
THE FUTURE OF META
Meta hinted that further changes are coming. “We still do not know for sure what the optimal size of the company will be in the future,” said Susan Li, chief financial officer, during an investor conference call last week. “I believe there are many changes underway, with AI capabilities evolving rapidly.” The day after the investor call, Zuckerberg held a Q&A session with all employees, along with other executives. During the meeting, which the Times viewed the recording of, Zuckerberg said Meta was not collecting employee data for “surveillance, performance monitoring, or things like that.” Rather, he explained, the data would be used to train AI on “how smart people use computers to perform tasks.” “I think we all know that artificial intelligence is one of the most competitive sectors, probably in history,” Zuckerberg added.
(Excerpt from the foreign press review curated by eprcomunicazione)
