Employees allege discrimination in AI-assisted layoffs

Current and former coalition Meta Employees filed a lawsuit against the social media giant, claiming that the company used artificial intelligence in a discriminatory manner in recent layoffs.

In a lawsuit filed Monday, the plaintiffs allege Meta violated various protected leave laws and discrimination laws related to pregnancy and disability, among others, and seek to pursue their claims individually in arbitration.

Lawyers representing 26 unnamed workers said: legal complaint The plaintiffs were among the 10% of Meta’s workforce cut in the company’s round of layoffs in May, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California reported.

The plaintiffs allege Meta’s “constellation of internal AI systems” failed to take approved absences into account when determining which employees to terminate.

“These tools, by design, leverage inputs (performance ratings, calibration scores, productivity and output metrics, ‘AI native’ ratings, and AI token consumption) that cannot be accumulated by an employee who is on protected medical or family leave or whose output is diminished by a disability,” the attorneys wrote in the filing.

The lawsuit accuses Meta of using metrics such as token consumption to target specific employees, which has become a tool for overall AI use. These measurements were rejected because these employees and others were on leave, lawyers wrote in the lawsuit.

Courthouse News Service had previously reported the case.

A Meta spokesperson told CNBC in an email that the “allegations are unsubstantiated and not based on facts.”

“Workforce management and organizational decisions were and are made by humans, not artificial intelligence,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement. he said.

The case underscores growing concern about the impact of AI on the workforce and people with disabilities in the workforce.

The plaintiffs are asking the court to issue an injunction preserving the status quo of Meta’s operations “pending an independent audit of the algorithmically powered selection process and resolution of the merits of their claims in arbitration.”

The lawsuit comes about a month after a federal judge in California ruled against the tech firm Working day In a separate employee-related case involving the use of Artificial intelligence for hiring decisions. In that case, the judge ruled that Workday should face allegations that the company used AI-powered job screening services and violated state and federal laws regarding discrimination against employees.

Workday denied the allegations and said in a statement at the time that its AI recruiting software does not drive hiring decisions “in California or anywhere else.”

“Our technology only looks at job qualifications, not protected characteristics like race, age or disability,” Workday said in a statement. he said. “We rigorously test our products as part of our Responsible AI program to verify that our tools do not harm protected groups.”

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