Meta to start capturing employee mouse movement, keystrokes for AI training data

They have nothing else to do. Someone needs to be able to justify their position by creating stupid changes like this to create a line item on their LinkedIn.

Meanwhile, nobody seems focused on capturing CEO’s data for AI training.

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47851242

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47851948

Wasn't it a few months ago that some engineer leaked that XAI was building 'Human Emulators'. This is either Meta's attempt at the same or just a blatant lie to make sure their engineers aren't slacking off. I've heard the workload has more than doubled for those who weren't laid off which is the only reason I think it might not be a employee monitoring system as I don't think anyone there can afford to not work hard.

Every day I grow more and more glad that I turned down a Meta offer. It was probably a hire-to-fire offer anyway, not based on any engineering prowess on my part. Still, I couldn't be more relieved I dodged that bullet.

> to improve the company's models in areas where they still struggle, like choosing from dropdown menus and using keyboard shortcuts

Seems like a strange approach in general. I'd have assumed you'd just have it use accessibility features to get at things, if there is no other interface.

Training on future vi macros. Just

  kk1Gi// file.js<Esc>M/func<Enter>o    let<Esc>``

Taking screenshots too.

‘Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said the data collected would not be used for performance assessments or any other purpose’

Horseshit.

1. Employees are being asked to train AI to replace them.

2. Performance assessments will 100% be impacted. No question.

Thinking back on the OTT interview experience that Facebook helped pioneer, imagine making it through that, getting paid a massive sum of money BUT barely getting by on it because of the location, then they drop this crap on you?

Big Brother is always watching.

The framing here matters. Recording keystrokes and mouse movement to train autonomous agents means they're essentially trying to replicate the work, not just assist with it.

There's a pretty direct implication: if you work at Meta and participate in this, you're generating training data for a system that's intended to eventually do your job. Consenting employees are literally labeling their own replacement.

The thing that will be interesting to watch is whether this stays US-only for legal reasons or if that's just the pilot. GDPR makes this kind of collection significantly more complicated in Europe.

As everybody knows, key strokes and mouse movements are the things that solve problems, definitely the data worth capturing for AI training.

When you will think about it, what actually useful data are you getting from this exercise? It is like strapping camera on a manual laborer so you can see what he sees, but you don't get data about the touch and grip and you won't get data about why he is doing specific moves.