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Meta’s controversial program that spied on its employees’ computers has backfired spectacularly.
Though its chief technology officer Andrew Bosworth assured that the data it collected would be “tightly controlled,” the company is now pausing the tracking program after sensitive employee information was leaked internally, according to reports from Business Insider and Wired.
A security notice sent out Monday said that the exposed data included employee’s full AI prompts and transcriptions, performance data, and even private conversations. The leak allowed the data to be accessible to any employee inside the company.
Meta said it’s investigating the incident and confirmed it paused the program, but maintains it’s keeping a lid on things.
“We have carefully designed this program with privacy safeguards, and while we have no indication at this time that any data was improperly accessed by Meta employees, we’re pausing it while we investigate,” a spokesperson told outlets.
The program, dubbed the Model Capability Initiative, was intended to gather data so Meta’s AI models could learn “how people actually complete everyday tasks using computers.” Reports suggested it collected everything from employee keystrokes to recording their computer screens.
When it was announced in April, it immediately sparked backlash in the workforce, with internal posts openly denouncing the initiative as an invasion of privacy, and some employees circulating a petition calling to end it. It came while morale at the company was at a nadir, following fresh layoffs that forced out nearly 8,000 employees, and a heavy push from the top that workers should heavily use AI to produce as much code as possible.
Under CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s directive, the company has doubled-down even further on developing automation tech, moving employees who were working elsewhere onto a new AI project, sowing further discontent.
Reactions from employees about the leak were unequivocally critical.
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