A federal lawsuit has been filed by 26 former Meta Platforms employees, who claim that the tech giant used prejudiced AI-powered algorithms to target pregnant workers, people with impairments, and those on medical leave for mass layoffs.
The lawsuit, which was filed late on Monday in a federal court in Oakland, California, claims that when the company cut thousands of jobs earlier this year, it relied on factors like productivity and the use of AI tokens, which disadvantaged those who missed work due to illness or to care for family members, according to a report by Reuters.
The plaintiffs are requesting a preliminary decision from the court to prevent Meta from finishing the layoffs exercise, while they pursue their claims in private arbitration. The plaintiffs were informed in May that their employment would be terminated beginning on July 22.
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The employees claim that while Meta's agreements mandate individual arbitration of workplace problems, they do not extend to requests for interim relief.
The allegations are unfounded, according to a Meta representative on Tuesday. The representative stated that people, not AI, have made and continue to make organisational and workforce management decisions.
The case seems to be the first to contest the purported use of AI in layoffs against a large American corporation.
According to Reuters, Meta fired off 10% of its global staff in May, or about 8,000 employees, and planned additional layoffs later this year. Since then, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has stated that he does not anticipate any further layoffs for the entire firm this year.
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The case was filed anonymously by 26 plaintiffs who accuse Meta of breaking state and federal laws that prohibit discrimination and retribution against employees who are pregnant, have impairments, or take medical leave.
Additionally, they assert that Meta violated recently passed regulations in California and New York City by failing to test its AI algorithms for bias.
The complaint claims that Meta ranked and scored employees on a termination list using a variety of internal AI-assisted methods. According to the lawsuit, these included "Metamate," a sizable language model assistant; an employee-trained "second brain" that monitored interactions and documents; and a productivity score derived from monitoring keystrokes, screen content, emails, and browser history.
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