Los Angeles.- A group of current and former Meta employees has filed a federal lawsuit against the company over the use of an artificial intelligence system they accuse of making discriminatory selections during the latest round of layoffs, which affected 10% of the workforce.
The lawsuit, filed in a federal court in Northern California by 26 workers, maintains that to create the layoff list, the company used a system known internally as ‘Metamate’, which allegedly discriminated against employees who were absent for health reasons, pregnancy, or to care for their family members.
The plaintiffs assert that the tool relied on input data, such as productivity and AI token consumption, which, by design, an employee on medical or family leave cannot accumulate, or whose performance diminishes due to a disability.
“The result was that employees who were on protected leave were disproportionately selected for layoff, based on a scoring system that not only failed to account for their protected leave, but in practice, penalized employees for exercising their legal right to such leave,” the lawsuit reads.
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Meta dismisses the accusation
The complaint explains that all 26 plaintiffs had requested or received authorization to take leave protected by law in the twenty-four months prior to the announcement of the staff reduction.
The tech company, parent of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, carried out a new round of layoffs last May that affected approximately 10% of its workforce -about 8,000 employees. This round included all the plaintiffs.
A Meta spokesperson denied the accusation to CNBC and asserted that “people made and continue to make” organizational decisions, “not AI.”
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The lawsuit brings into the public spotlight the growing concern regarding the impact of AI tools for personnel selection.
