Meta Faces Lawsuit: AI Accused of Bias in Layoffs

Meta Faces a Lawsuit: AI Accused of Bias in Layoffs

A group of 26 former Meta employees is suing the company over the use of AI tools to unfairly target workers on leave during layoffs, as reported by Reuters. In the lawsuit, the employees claim that Meta determined which workers to lay off based on performance data collected by a “constellation” of internal AI tools, but failed to exclude those on parental or medical leave from its ranking system.

The result was that employees who had taken protected leave were disproportionately selected for layoffs, due to a scoring system that not only disregarded their protected leave but actually penalized employees for exercising their legal rights to such leave.

The layoffs mentioned in the lawsuit occurred in May as part of Meta's plans to reduce its workforce by 10%, or approximately 8,000 workers. The former Meta employees allege that the company used an internal AI assistant called Metamate, AI agents trained by employees, internal dashboards displaying AI token usage, and other tools to “score, rank, and select employees for inclusion on the layoff list.”

The lawsuit accuses Meta of violating federal and state laws that prevent employers from laying off workers for taking protected leave. “These allegations are baseless and not grounded in fact,” says Tracy Clayton, a spokesperson for Meta. “Workforce management and organizational decisions have been and are made by people, not by AI.”