Meta’s AI-assisted layoffs of 8,000 workers targeted disabled workers and those taking protected medical or family leave, with 26 workers selected for layoffs allegedly suing. Meta used in-house artificial intelligence tools to select employees to be fired complaint 26 “Doe” was filed by plaintiffs in the US District Court for the Northern District of California yesterday.
“Meta did not create a layoff list based on the judgment of knowledgeable managers. Instead, Meta used internal artificial intelligence systems, including a system internally called Metamate, employee-trained ‘second brain’ agents, keystroke and activity monitoring, and algorithmic-assisted performance ranking and calibration — to score, rank, and select employees for inclusion on the list,” the lawsuit states.
Employees were allegedly rated on how much they used Meta’s AI tools. “Meta’s internal dashboards categorized employees by stage of adoption of AI tools, using categories such as ‘AI Native’, ‘Air First AI’ and ‘AI Enabled,'” the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit is apparently “the first against a major U.S. company to challenge an alleged use of artificial intelligence in layoffs.” According to Reuters. The complaint alleges that Meta’s employee monitoring tools did not account for differences caused by disability and protected leave.
“These tools rely on inputs — performance ratings, calibration scores, productivity and output metrics, ‘AI-native’ ratings, and AI-token consumption — that by design cannot be collected by an employee on medical or family leave or whose productivity is reduced due to a disability,” the lawsuit said.
Meta says that the firing decisions were made by humans, not AI
Meta says that the people made the decision to lay off. “These claims are baseless and not based on facts. Workforce management and organizational decisions are made and made by humans, not artificial intelligence,” Meta said in a statement to Ars today. Meta had no further comment on the lawsuit.
