Artificial Intelligence is the Cause of Dispute Between Meta Employees and Their Company!

San Francisco (AFP) – Twenty-six employees at Meta have filed a lawsuit accusing the technology giant of using artificial intelligence to select workers for mass layoffs, a claim the trillion-dollar company has strongly denied.

The plaintiffs are among the 8,000 employees, representing roughly 10 percent of its workforce, that Meta announced in the spring it would let go as part of its effort to redirect resources toward an ambitious artificial intelligence agenda.

According to the lawsuit, filed in Oakland, California, Meta used AI systems to “evaluate, rank, and select” employees for termination, rather than relying on “the considered judgment of managers with knowledge of the work,” disproportionately targeting employees on medical or family leave.

The AI systems relied on “performance evaluations, calibration scores, and productivity and output metrics,” indicators that employees cannot accrue while on medical or family leave, and which may be lower for people with disabilities.

The 71-page complaint stated that all 26 employees had either taken or requested guaranteed leave, or requested or received reasonable accommodations due to a disability.

In response, U.S. media outlets, including CNBC and The Verge, quoted a Meta spokesperson as saying, “Workforce management and organizational decisions have been and continue to be made by humans, not AI.”