One of the most egregious 'everything-will-be-OK' arguments that repeatedly gets trotted out about our future when AI & robotics can do most work, is that existing workers will be trained & redeployed by their employers. Often, people using this argument, adding extra sugar to the sugar-coating, may airly add it will be a new job they'll like more.
If you thought that sounded like bulls**t, here's some proof of how things will really play out. Meta is getting rid of everyone it can with AI, and using the rest to train their AI replacements.
No doubt META & its HR department will try to tell you differently, just like the 'don't worry' sugar-coating people. However, nothing beats what you can see happening straight in front of you with your own eyes.
Meta to cut one in 10 jobs after spending billions on AI
Meta will start tracking employees’ screens and keystrokes to train AI tools
After laying off 10,000 workers for AI, Meta installed tracking software on remaining employees’ work computers to log mouse movements, clicks, keystrokes, and screenshots, using the data to train their AI replacements.
byu/lughnasadh inFuturology
31 Comments
Are you sure it’s to train AI and not to check who’s slacking?
You guys do realize that this isn’t a new thing?
Hubstaff has existed for years for remote workers, doing the exact same thing.
The usual narrative is “productity control”, of course.
If we view AI as a kind of Oompa Loompa, I can pretend this is all some Willy Wonka inspired fever dream and I’ll wake up from everything that’s happened since the internet took over our lives if I put the phone down and go to sleep…
Imagine if everyone working for Meta just quit. What would they do?
I honestly don’t understand people who think companies and corporations are somehow their friends and have their interests in mind. Corporations are there to extract as much profit as possible while paying as little as possible. For that they are going to do everything they can including committing crimes if they think the fine is going to be less than the profit. This has been proven time and time again through history.
Meta identified critical employees they couldn’t currently replace with AI, those employees have leverage and should all leave at the same time.
Looks like it’s gonna be really easy for campaigners to take down Meta apps in the future with only machines to disrupt. I’m imagining some guy in a little golf cart desperately scrounging round a site the size of 80 football pitches trying to figure things out lol.
How your life shapes the the future consists of your consumer choices, your voting choices and your work place choices but somehow people only admit this when it comes to their voting choices rarely with their consumer choice and almost never with their work place choices. Finding a job is hard so it’s rarely a choice to work for an evil company but in cases where the person did choose to work for meta I don’t have any empathy for them, it’s very much karma.
I want a future where everyone owns their own house / apartment, a small vegetable garden for basic food rations and enough solar panels to cover their electricity bills, so that no one has to work for companies anymore that literally do nothing than exploit you like a parasite. That way people have true freedom when it comes to what job they want and who they want to work for.
Capitalism needs to be reserved to luxury goods not to basic needs. People really need to start voting socialism alot more so that they get the ability to be self sufficient before our cooparate overlords strip us of our voting rights, because that is what capitalism will do very soon.
How the hell the US ever get to call itself the land of the free?!
We entering world where all highly educated I.T. workers will become dole dependent and physical jobs like electricians or plumbers to become millionaires as those never be replaced 😅
How would this pass legal/security muster with all the info that will be ingested? Passwords, benefits info, customer info, and everything that they are processing.
But unions and labour laws are the evil thing! 😂🤡 I swear some people deserve it… Does it take for us to have children in the mines again before actually demanding better laws and protections? It is incredibly stupid to expect taking out from the fruits of society, resource that is publicly funded and grown, only to discard it afterwards for a ridiculous fraction of the wealth it generated, with society only getting shit in return.
All I’ve ever heard about working there sounds horrendous. Comp must be good for people to put up with it.
Meta 100% already had that software on employees laptops. Virtually every large org does now.
If I were a Meta employee then I would be looking to leave immediately. I would not tolerate them micro managing my keystrokes. There are a ton of innovative startups that are far more interesting.
Why is my ai solution playing minesweeper and shit talking me on reddit?
I remember when Mitt Romney said “corporations are people” and it was a huge gaff.
He was somewhat right, he just forgot to add that they were homicidal psychopaths as well.
AI was never created with humanity in mind. The reason companies are taking massive losses with the current models is they know in a short period of time they can replace the majority of tech workers. Profit is and always will come before people for corporations.
I’m sure companies want to replace people with AI, but it seems to not really be happening at a high level, and I’m not sure AI can actually do a lot of people’s jobs. It’s more that I think they’re unable rather than unwilling
In retrospect we probably should’ve used that free time during the pandemic to fight for labor rights instead.
Here’s a great opportunity to seed Meta AI with some really bad training to make it super incompetent.
Jokes on them. Who’s gonna fund their billionaire lifestyles? When there’s no taxes being paid because no human being works anymore? Or do they think we’ll all simply roll over and let them enslave and kill us? What the actual fuck is the long term game plan, we deserve to know!
less than a hundred dudes will own it all. They will have less than 100 people to run it all. Each. They will control entire nations and factors of production. Maybe 5% of the world will be employed to make sure that 95% of us don’t ruin their shit.
The entire world will be an automated system that works for these 10,000 people. Ya cooked.
Zuckerberg has also been working on an AI version of himself so that he doesn’t have to interact with employees as much. What a charming company culture they must have.
My company has a deal with chatgpt and is encouraging us to use it for everything.
Hah, no, and you’re an idiot if you do.
I know the argument is “if you got nothing to hide, you are ok with it” but damn…
Thats some draconian move from the company.
I would not be interested in working for someone who is spying on me actively.
Money, status, resume, all might be good, but…
Hard pass on this bs.
Are there are companies that don’t openly hate their workers now?
[In other news on a happier note.](https://www.reddit.com/r/UpliftingNews/comments/1svnuip/these_uc_berkeley_students_are_leading_the_fight/)
Sounds like the first 10k dodged a ~~vibe management~~ visionary leadership bullet.
Now people are going to get automated emails mid day,
“`
Levi, you’re being let go — you logged 21.58 ft of mouse movement against a 300m requirement, and 13,543 keystrokes of the 150,000 minimum.
Your activity data has been retained and will be used in assessing any future applications within our network.
By opening this email, you acknowledge receipt of this notice. Your workstation and cubicle have been locked, and automated security has been dispatched to assist with your departure.
Thank you for your time.
“`
My grandpappy used to say “watch how they treat their employees, that’s the real product.. employee policies are just a preview of how it’d treat everyone if they had leverage”
I think he was talking about credit card companies, but yeah..
Who in the world has ever argued that employers would replace their employees with AI and then train and redeploy those very same employees for entirely new positions without loss?
The argument has been that classes of work would become automated and workers would have to retrain _themselves_ to move into new positions, some of which would also be _created by_ this new technology.
It’s also fanciful thinking if essentially 90% (or hell, _all_) work ends up being able to be done by machines more effectively than humans, but we should be clear about the failure modes and not strawman them.
If you work for these evil companies you dont really have my sympathy. Use your skills to help the world be better, instead of trying to turn a blind eye to its destruction, at your hands, for a nice paycheck.