Meta engineer curses at executives during live meeting; 6,500 engineers forced into AI data labeling

ME AI message: According to monitoring by Beating, during a live internal Meta meeting attended by thousands, an engineer suddenly unmuted himself and swore, accusing the Applied AI department of making him “the company’s bitch,” and demanded that executives be told he was “a piece of shit.” The sudden outburst left the presenter visibly embarrassed, and the live chat was immediately flooded with reactions. In response to mounting resentment, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg issued a memo on June 12 apologizing and pledging reforms. The Applied AI department, established in March this year, comprises approximately 6,500 engineers who were forcibly reassigned with only two options: accept the transfer or leave. Engineers have self-deprecatingly referred to themselves as “conscripted laborers.” Originally assigned to social applications, they are now forced under keystroke monitoring to create two original problems each week—problems that neither models nor online sources can solve—and write edge-case tests. The monotonous, mechanical nature of labeling has left engineers feeling profoundly underutilized, with many describing their roles as a “Gulag” labor camp. This practice of using high-salary engineers for data labeling originated with Meta’s Chief AI Officer, Alexandr Wang. At an April meeting, Zuckerberg stated that Wang believed Meta employees were far more intelligent than outsourced workers and could label data more efficiently. Ironically, after Meta acquired Scale AI last year, the new head immediately halted the practice upon being shocked that engineers were forced into labeling. Yet, with Alexandr Wang now leading Meta’s labs, the abandoned model has been revived on an even larger scale—so much so that it has paralyzed parts of Meta’s security teams due to forced reassignments. In addition to forced reassignments, Meta has implemented keystroke monitoring internally to generate AI training data, prompting over 1,600 employees to sign a petition in protest. Meta’s Chief Product Officer, Chris Cox, admitted in an internal meeting that the current environment is extremely brutal, describing employees’ situation as “running a marathon in a hailstorm, only to have your teammates suddenly replaced—and the company recording you the whole time. It is like what the fuck.” In response to the crisis, Zuckerberg pledged in his memo to cap the number of direct reports per manager and reaffirmed that there will be no major layoffs this year. He stated that the Applied AI department is only a temporary transit station and that affected employees will later be offered opportunities to transition into more meaningful roles. (Source: BlockBeats)