A group of employees from Meta Platforms, Inc. have filed a lawsuit alleging the company used artificial intelligence to select workers for layoffs in a discriminatory manner, a claim the tech giant has firmly denied.
Twenty-six employees of the metaverse company have initiated legal action, contending the trillion-dollar technology firm utilized an AI system to filter and identify personnel for termination. The company has refuted these accusations.
Earlier this year, Meta announced plans to cut 8,000 jobs, representing roughly 10% of its workforce, a move intended to reallocate resources towards its expansive artificial intelligence development strategy. All 26 plaintiffs in the lawsuit were included in this round of layoffs.
The complaint, filed Monday in an Oakland, California court, alleges that Meta relied on an AI system to score, rank, and determine which employees to let go, rather than having managers conduct comprehensive, personalized human reviews based on familiarity with the employees' work. The suit further claims the AI screening mechanism exhibited bias against employees who took medical or family leave.
The AI system's evaluation was reportedly based on metrics such as performance ratings, calibration scores, work output, and productivity indicators. However, employees on medical or family leave could not accumulate such data, and employees with disabilities would likely receive lower scores on these metrics.
The 71-page legal document states, "The law requires companies to conduct individualized human reviews unaffected by leave or disability accommodation policies, but Meta did not pause this AI screening system or bypass the compliance review process."
In response to the allegations, a Meta spokesperson was quoted by several U.S. media outlets, including The Verge, stating that personnel management and organizational decisions are always made by people, with AI serving only in an assistive role, not as the primary decision-maker.
The spokesperson added via email, "These allegations lack merit and are completely unfounded." Requests for comment sent to the company have not received a response.
Meta's large-scale workforce reduction is part of its strategy to free up capital for investment in the computing infrastructure race. The company plans to invest up to $145 billion this year in artificial intelligence, nearly double its investment from the previous year.
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