Meta Layoffs Stress Harsh AI Reality Inside Zuckerberg's Company (cnbc.com) 41
Meta is expected to begin cutting about 8,000 jobs this week as it pours more money into AI infrastructure and looks to "offset" other investments, with additional layoffs reportedly possible later this year. According to CNBC, the morale has worsened inside the company. "Internally, there's an emerging sense of dread across wide swaths of the company," the report says, citing current and former Meta employees. "That's in part because more cuts are expected this year, including a potential round of layoffs in August, followed by another round later in the year, some of the sources said." From the report: [...] Whatever anxiety investors are experiencing, the feelings inside the company are more intense, with some longtime staffers questioning Meta's AI pursuits under AI chief Alexandr Wang, while also weighing if now is the time to leave for opportunities at other companies in the AI race, according to current and former employees. Data aggregated by Blind, an anonymous professional network that requires users to verify their employment with a work email address, reveals some of the internal malaise. Meta's overall rating by employees on Blind has declined 25% from a peak in the second quarter of 2024 to the current period, with a 39% drop in its culture rating. In every category other than compensation, Meta has seen a ratings decline and dramatically underperforms rivals Amazon, Google and Netflix, the Blind data reveals.
The company's full-court press with AI included the recent debut of an employee tracking tool intended to collect data from staffers' actions, such as mouse movements and keystrokes on their work computers. The Model Capability Initiative, or MCI, as it's called, is part of Meta's efforts to train AI models to power digital agents that can perform various coding and white-collar tasks. Employees have characterized the data tracking tool as "dystopian," according to messages viewed by CNBC, with some workers expressing fear that personal information could be leaked. Some Meta workers have noted that their workplace computers appear slower since the company initiated the project, adding to their frustration, sources said.
Meta workers responded by creating an online petition that urges Zuckerberg and leadership to shutter the project. "Collecting and repurposing this kind of data raises serious concerns around privacy, consent, and trust in the workplace," the petition says. "It should not be the norm that companies of any size are permitted to exploit their employees by nonconsensually extracting their data for the purposes of AI training." Further reading: NYT: 'Meta's Embrace of AI Is Making Its Employees Miserable'
The company's full-court press with AI included the recent debut of an employee tracking tool intended to collect data from staffers' actions, such as mouse movements and keystrokes on their work computers. The Model Capability Initiative, or MCI, as it's called, is part of Meta's efforts to train AI models to power digital agents that can perform various coding and white-collar tasks. Employees have characterized the data tracking tool as "dystopian," according to messages viewed by CNBC, with some workers expressing fear that personal information could be leaked. Some Meta workers have noted that their workplace computers appear slower since the company initiated the project, adding to their frustration, sources said.
Meta workers responded by creating an online petition that urges Zuckerberg and leadership to shutter the project. "Collecting and repurposing this kind of data raises serious concerns around privacy, consent, and trust in the workplace," the petition says. "It should not be the norm that companies of any size are permitted to exploit their employees by nonconsensually extracting their data for the purposes of AI training." Further reading: NYT: 'Meta's Embrace of AI Is Making Its Employees Miserable'
Also Further Reading (Score:3)
Here's yet another Slashdot post [slashdot.org] on the topic besides the three already listed.
That morale is down after layoffs and intrusive monitoring seems like the pretty obvious outcome of the previous stories.
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"The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves"
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Anyone who cared about morale left Facebook a long time ago.
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Fuckerberg has always strived for low morale. He thinks it weeds out the weak.
Surprise, surprise. (Score:5, Insightful)
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"For all who draw the sword will die by the sword."
Meta: The model for America going forward (Score:5, Interesting)
The business owners of America are desperate to believe that what is happening at Meta is a repeatable pattern. First, implement AI tracking and data aggregation on employees, then remove those employees as they begin to complain in favor of using the AI that was trained on the previously gathered data. It remains to be seen if this will actually be a viable way to continue moving a business forward, but this is the vision that has been sold by the AI prophets over the last few years, and there are a lot of very excitable executives extremely excited at the prospect that they can finally be free of unpredictable and demanding employees and only have to utilize automation systems labeled AI to do all the work that humans used to do.
Let's see how this pans out for Meta long-term as they continue down this path of what seems to be madness from the outside. If they have a bumpy few months, followed by great success, expect to start feeling that same dystopian view implemented in more businesses.
Re:Meta: The model for America going forward (Score:4, Insightful)
The business owners of America are desperate to believe that what is happening at Meta is a repeatable pattern. First, implement AI tracking and data aggregation on employees, then remove those employees as they begin to complain in favor of using the AI that was trained on the previously gathered data. It remains to be seen if this will actually be a viable way to continue moving a business forward, but this is the vision that has been sold by the AI prophets over the last few years, and there are a lot of very excitable executives extremely excited at the prospect that they can finally be free of unpredictable and demanding employees and only have to utilize automation systems labeled AI to do all the work that humans used to do.
It's the dream of sociopathic greedy billionaires everywhere. Too bad for them that it's a pipe dream.
Here's the harsh reality: AI doesn't work. You can spend days cajoling AI into doing something correctly and spend days reviewing the bad code over and over until it gets it right or you can spend days writing the code. On average, the time savings are minimal, and the cost in terms of code understanding is enormous, resulting in less and less maintainable code over time until you eventually end up having to throw the whole thing away and rewrite it from scratch at an enormous cost.
Mind you, Meta was probably at the point where their whole code base needed to be thrown away and rewritten from scratch at least five years ago, given the level of bugginess that I've seen, so maybe AI lets them extend the long tail of badly written code a bit longer before they completely implode, but that's hardly a position for other execs to aspire to.
Let's see how this pans out for Meta long-term as they continue down this path of what seems to be madness from the outside. If they have a bumpy few months, followed by great success, expect to start feeling that same dystopian view implemented in more businesses.
They won't. They'll have a bumpy few months followed by mass attrition from the complete destruction of employee morale, followed by panic when they realize that they don't have enough remaining employees to keep the lights on adequately, followed by even bigger panic when they realize qualified candidates aren't even bothering to apply for their open positions.
Nobody wants to work for a dying shell of a company that laid off a third of their workers over only a couple of years. As a company, if you're not innovating and growing, you're dying. Meta is dying. Their AI is basically worst-in-class at this point, and everything else is getting shoved aside to make more money for that latest boondoggle, because their execs don't know how to recognize a sunk cost fallacy.
It would take a literal miracle to save Meta from the death spiral that this will cause. If I owned Meta stock, I'd be selling in a hurry right now, or at least selling covered calls to buy protective puts to limit my losses. Stick a fork in it. They're done.
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Here's the harsh reality: AI doesn't work.
If this harsh reality is indeed the reality, then this dystopian nightmare is guaranteed to be temporary because eventually the tech will be shown to not work. So, even though people will suffer in the meanwhile, the problem will take care of itself over time. The real fear is not that the AI doesn't work but rather that the AI does work to at least some extent.
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The real fear is not that the AI doesn't work but rather that the AI does work to at least some extent.
And unfortunately, it does. The corporate world has already satisfied all of the relevant if statements. It works to some extent if you are willing to accept massive failures — the industry has proven that over and over again by rewarding failures with sales, they will buy proven trash before paying for quality; they will accept "good enough for right now" and kick the can forever; they will rewrite entire products and discard years of both development and goodwill just to look like they're forward-lo
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Here's the harsh reality: AI doesn't work.
If this harsh reality is indeed the reality, then this dystopian nightmare is guaranteed to be temporary because eventually the tech will be shown to not work. So, even though people will suffer in the meanwhile, the problem will take care of itself over time. The real fear is not that the AI doesn't work but rather that the AI does work to at least some extent.
It of course works to some extent. It doesn't work to an extent that it can replace a meaningful part of engineer time, though it can certainly be used for rapid prototyping and other special cases.
Most of engineers' time isn't spent writing code. It is spent reviewing code and understanding the code. When a person writes code, they are doing this while they write the code. When AI writes the code, that time is spent on the back end while reviewing the code. This is actually more mentally intensive tha
Re: Meta: The model for America going forward (Score:2, Interesting)
I have written a bunch of code with LLM that I trust in production. One is a project i have been running for 2 months with no known issues. It uses the Yolink local hub API to interface with 110 LorA radio (non IP) sensors. I just made it public on github yesterday as I'm satisfied that it sufficiently reliable for others to try. Is the code pretty ? No. Did I write a single line of code myself ? Also no. I don't really know Python syntax well enough. And indentation based logic is a real mindfuck with my v
Re: Meta: The model for America going forward (Score:2)
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Here's the harsh reality: AI doesn't work. You can spend days cajoling AI into doing something correctly and spend days reviewing the bad code over and over until it gets it right or you can spend days writing the code. On average, the time savings are minimal, and the cost in terms of code understanding is enormous, resulting in less and less maintainable code over time until you eventually end up having to throw the whole thing away and rewrite it from scratch at an enormous cost.
So, IOW, just like so many Hoomon-Developed Software Projects. . .
(Sorry, couldn’t resist; I actually agree with you wholeheartedly on this!)
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Don't forget that having the pleasure to use 'AI' is going to start costing a LOT as well.
How many of these companies are making a profit right now? You don't think they're about making money?
I don't see how this can't backfire spectacularly. Really sucks it's putting the livelihoods of real people on the line in the meantime.
Errrm, you sure about that?!? (Score:2)
Here's the harsh reality: AI doesn't work.
Looking at AI doing the job I just did a year ago I'd say AI is working pretty good. Better than me in fact. And waaaay faster. Basically replacing an entire team of developers. ... Perhaps you should look into the newest models?
Curiously enough, what won't be working for long anymore is Facebook itself, when it's just AI talking to each other. I never got why FB had a business case in the first place. But then again, I'm a computer expert that isn't to bedazzled ab
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You don't have to wait and see how it pans out... it's happening regardless of how it actually works out... they'll rework the AI until it works fine for the job.
What're school loan outfits going to do when they have to go after a whole college graduating class when none of them can find a job?
How's society going to be when nobody can find a job, nobody can afford to buy anything, and all these companies keep cranking out more stuff?
Won't even be able to afford a $1 overstock iPhone 30.
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Meta isn't saying they are gaining so much productivity that they don't need so many employees. What they are saying is that they are spending so much money on AI infrastructure, that they need to cut the number of employees, to pay for it.
Meta is expected to begin cutting about 8,000 jobs this week as it pours more money into AI infrastructure
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It seems to me they could redirect the 10 figures a year they are spending on building a VR world no one wants or will use. Or did they cannibalize that already?
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Hmmm now there's a thought. Exchange an artificial world for artificial intelligence. That's very meta.
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They did.
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The business owners of America are desperate to believe that what is happening at Meta is a repeatable pattern.
Earnest question: Is this laptop snooping to train AI replacements a Meta thing, or is it happening at other companies?
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From what I have read, it sounds like a few other tech companies are doing similar things but the mouse tracking here seems to be the "extreme". I personally find the idea stupid. If you are going to train an AI, I think in most apps and with most calculations, having them work with a "virtual mouse" is just wasted cycles. I think that's the largest reason this is different. Amazon is pushing it's developers to use it's AI. Google is pushing similarly and has a new "Remy" which is agentic.
The snooping quest
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PLENTY of companies big and small spy on their employees. I've seen it first-hand. However, it is more commonly framed as a corporate security measure – keep customer data private, protect intellectual property, etc. – and doesn't typically take the form of monitoring employee activity down the granularity of each keystroke (although some systems do this) and pointer movement (much more rare, because the data is so decontextualized; how do you know what they're pointing at unless you're also rec
Who would use any AI by Meta (Score:2)
What goes around, comes around. (Score:4, Insightful)
That "data tracking tool" is Facebook itself, which they themselves have built.
Jes sayin (Score:2)
And very little else, about the only things I am interested in is Maxwell Parrish and Weyth paintings, But ther
AI is codeword for fiscal panic (Score:2)
Their AI must suck if they can't even produce enough bot users to cover the human exodus. To be fair, it is a lot of bots.
To paraphrase Jaws, They're gonna need a bigger data center!
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Remember, people (Score:2)
The fiduciary duty of those running a for-profit company is to maximize profits for their shareholders, not to keep employees in the company's payroll. If the shareholders are, to a large extent, foreign investors then, so be it.
Your employer is not your friend; don't forget that the next time they bring up the condescending and populist "we are a big family" nonsense. The conclusion is that if you can (metaphorically) stab your employer in the back, that is what you should do.
Lay off Zuck (Score:3)
Those 8000 jobs may result in payroll savings of $2B but how much did the Robot Boy Genius "invest" in his terrible clone of where Second Life was 20 years ago?
Re: Lay off Zuck (Score:2)
Don't let yourself fall for the sunk cost fallacy.
With the latest AI generating code, whilst being supervised and corrected by other AI, and the result implemented and rolled out by other AI, it will be possible to create another failed approximation of Second Life at half the price.
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Speaking of boy genius, but I can't help but think of the aliens universe's megacorporations lately.
Morale down? (Score:2)
The layoffs will continue until morale improves.
Bad Workforce Management (Score:2)
The cheapest employee to acquire is the one that already works for you.
it is implausible that Meta has run out of things to do.
Why? (Score:2)
Why? Why shouldn't companies that develop and train AIs be permitted to require their employees to help accomplish the company's goals? Strip the dumb claims about exploitation and consent, they don't apply and were only inserted to provoke an emotional response.
Facebook CAN get worse (Score:2)
That's a shocker. It's an advert fruit machine paying out an update from a friend once in 30, and has an AI which cannot work out what a joke is at a basic level.
Dying company continues to die.
Idiots (Score:2)
while also weighing if now is the time to leave for opportunities at other companies in the AI race,
So they can do the exact same thing? Maybe get out of the AI race entirely.