Meta’s decision tracking employee keystrokes and mouse data is causing confusion in the company. “Selfishly, I don’t want anyone to scratch my screen because it feels like an invasion of my privacy,” the engineer wrote in an internal post seen by nearly 20,000 co-workers this week. “But to zoom out, I don’t want to live in a world where people – employees and otherwise – are exploited to obtain training data.”
The message was intended to rally support for a petition circulating within the company since last Thursday demanding an end to what Meta calls the Model Capability Initiative. This is mandatory software that Meta began installing on U.S. employee laptops last month. According to Reuters, the tool captures the screens of employees using specific applications to collect “real-world examples of how people actually use computers,” including “mouse movements, button clicks and navigating drop-down menus.” Meta hasn’t yet said whether the initial data is paying off.
“I mix 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 on an internal developer forum. “And what kind of standards do we set for how we use this technology and how we treat people?”
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 senselessly mining their data for Al training purposes.”
In the U.S., employers generally have wide latitude in monitoring employee devices for security, training, evaluation, and security purposes. But using these tools to create datasets that instruct artificial intelligence systems how to navigate computers without human supervision seems like a modern tactic — and one that doesn’t sit well with many Meta employees. Over the past few years, several companies have entered the race to develop agent-based AI models. However, in collecting data, they typically used volunteers, sometimes paid, who agreed to record their computer activities.
Meta’s decision to continue developing the tracking tool despite weeks of employee protests became one of the main causes of what 16 current and former employees recently described to WIRED as record low morale. He is also a key driver of efforts to unionize employees at Meta’s UK offices.
“Workplace surveillance and AI training models are the number one issue,” says Eleanor Payne, a representative of United Tech and Allied Workers, which helps organize Meta workers. She declined to say how many workers wanted to form a union, but called it “significant” and unprecedented.
While only US workers are currently tracked, UK workers are concerned about their colleagues and the potential for the program to expand. “I consider it a loss of trust,” Payne says. He adds that modern laws that have made it easier to form trade unions in the UK have encouraged workers to see opportunities for success.
At Meta’s offices in California and Modern York, employees posted flyers in cafeterias and other public areas, pointing out the petition to their co-workers. Two employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media, say the company removed some of the posters and those hanging on bathroom walls appear to have lasted longer.