A few days ago, a report revealed Meta’s decision to install new tracking software on US-based employees’ computers to capture mouse movements, clicks, and keystrokes. The tool was not for observing productivity but for use in training Meta’s artificial intelligence models. The news did cause concerns amongst some Meta employees, but it was not immediately clear why Meta resorted to tracking its own employees for training AI models. But now we have an answer. Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg has acknowledged that they are indeed tracking their employees, and it is related to their intelligence.
As per The Information report, in a company-wide meeting, Mark Zuckerberg said employee internal activity generates valuable data because Meta employees are significantly more intelligent than the average set of people deployed by other AI companies via contractors for training AI models. Meta CEO says this approach can help Meta outperform its competitors that heavily rely on contractors.
“One basic insight and hypothesis that we have is that a lot of data generation across the field is done by these contract companies,” The Information quotes Zuckerberg. “In general, the average intelligence of the people who are at this company is significantly higher than the average set of people that you can get to do tasks if you’re working through these contractors,” he added.
Inside Meta’s tracking tool
Meta’s internal employee tracking tool is called Model Capability Initiative (MCI). It runs on work-related apps and websites and will also take occasional snapshots of the content on employees’ screens, as reported by Reuters last week. Meta will use this data to replicate how humans interact with computers, like choosing from dropdown menus and using keyboard shortcuts.
Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth at the time told employees that the company would step up internal data collection as part of those “AI for Work” efforts, now rebranded as Agent Transformation Accelerator (ATA).
Not ruling out further layoffs
During the meeting, Meta chief people officer Janelle Gale also discussed plans to lay off around 10 per cent of its staff next month. She told staff she is not ruling out further cuts.
“Will there be more layoffs? The question always comes up. I’d love to say that there are no more layoffs, but I can’t say something we can’t deliver,” Gale said during the meeting, as reported by Business Insider. “While the business is strong, priorities change, competition is fierce, and we will continue to manage our costs responsibly,” she added.
Meta CEO Zuckerberg also discussed layoffs during his address. He said AI automation is not the driving factor behind them, and AI has made small teams far more efficient.