An engineer’s post protesting laptop surveillance is going viral within Meta

Meta’s decision Tracking an employee’s keystrokes and mouse data causes an error sensation Within the company. “Selfishly, I don’t want my screen to be scratched because it feels like an invasion of my privacy,” one user wrote. engineer In an internal post that was viewed by nearly 20,000 coworkers this week. “But taking a holistic view, I don’t want to live in a world where humans — employees or otherwise — are being exploited for their training data.”

The letter aims to garner support for a petition circulating within the company since last Thursday demanding an end to what Meta calls the Modular Capacity Initiative. It’s part of the mandatory software that Meta began installing on US employees’ laptops last month. The tool records employees’ screens when using certain applications with the goal of collecting “real-world examples of how people actually use” computers, including “mouse movements, button clicks, and navigation of drop-down menus,” according to Reuters. Meta has not yet determined whether the initial data bears fruit.

“I’m mixed about Al. On the one hand, I really enjoy using it to write software. On the other hand, I’m very nervous about its impact on the world,” the engineer wrote in an internal programmer forum. “And what kind of standards do we set about how technology will be used, and how people will be treated?”

The petition, also seen by WIRED, states that “it should not be the norm to allow companies of any size to exploit their employees by extracting their data without their consent for training purposes.”

In the United States, employers in general It has wide latitudes To monitor workers’ devices for security, training, evaluation and safety purposes. But it appears that using these tools to build data sets that guide AI systems around navigating computers without human supervision New tactic– something that does not sit well with many Meta workers. Over the past few years, many companies have entered the race to develop effective AI models. But when data is collected, it is often exploited Volunteerssometimes paid, who want to record their activity on the computer.

Meta’s decision to go ahead with its tracking tool despite weeks of employee protest became one of the main reasons for what happened to 16 current and former employees. It was recently described to WIRED as record low morale. It is also a key driver of staff consolidation efforts at Meta’s UK offices.

“AI models for workplace monitoring and training are the No. 1 thing,” says Eleanor Payne, a representative for United Tech and Allied Workers, which helps organize Meta employees. She declined to specify the number of employees seeking to form a labor union, but described it as “large” and unprecedented.

While only US employees are currently being tracked, employees in the UK are concerned for their colleagues and the potential for the program to expand. “I think it’s very much a breakdown of trust,” Payne says. She adds that new laws that have made it easier to join unions in the United Kingdom have given employees more opportunities to succeed.

At Meta’s offices in California and New York, workers posted fliers in cafeterias and other common areas directing colleagues to the petition. Two employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, say the company removed some of the stickers, and the stickers on the bathroom walls appeared to have stayed on longer.