Would you quit? Meta will put keyloggers on employee PCs for AI training

It’s best to assume that nothing you do on a work-issued PC is private. But is there no limit? No breaking point where people start throwing their laptops out of windows and joining Watch Dogs-esque hacktivist groups? Meta sure seems to be looking for it.

Reuters reports that the Facebook, VR, and now AI company will track US-based employees’ “mouse movements, clicks and ​keystrokes” on “work-related apps and websites” for the purpose of AI training. It will also take screenshots, according to the report.

A Meta spokesperson told Reuters that the company will somehow exclude “sensitive content” and won’t use the data for performance evaluations. Rather, their AI models “need real examples” of people using computers for everyday tasks in order to automate them.

If I were a Meta employee, I’d take this to mean that the company thinks I can be replaced by a robot that I was forced to train. Meta has pledged to spend $600 billion on AI by 2028, and according to another Reuters report, plans to lay off nearly 8,000 employees in May.

The mood inside Meta has been “horrid” in recent years, according to Ed Zitron, an AI industry critic who reports on what he’s called “the most annoying bubble in history” in his Where’s Your Ed At newsletter. Zitron’s impression from sources inside the company is that there exists a “culture of paranoia,” which an AI-training keylogger won’t likely improve.

“Everyone I know at Meta hates working there,” Zitron told PC Gamer on a call today.

Meta introduced a new AI model, Muse Spark, earlier in April, and claims that it’s a step toward “superintelligence,” a buzzword the AI industry has been bandying about for years now. A Meta executive acknowledged to Bloomberg that the model performs worse than competitor models at some tasks, but said that it’s “early,” and that the company has bigger LLMs in development.

In its report, Reuters notes that Meta’s keylogging initiative likely targets US employees because laws related to employee surveillance are stricter in Europe.