Meta to start recording employee mouse and keyboard actions for AI

A new and potentially explosive report from Reuters claims that Meta is installing tracking software on all its employees' computers to log mouse movements and keyboard keystrokes. According to the report, this is part of a new "broader initiative" to overhaul the company's workforce by training and building AI agents that can "perform work tasks autonomously."

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The report notes that it has seen the internal memos from Meta regarding this, which is being called the Model Capability Initiative (MCI). Apparently, it will run on all work-related apps and websites, and will even take screenshots of employees' displays. According to one of the internal memos, the purpose of the new initiative is to accelerate AI model training in areas where they struggle.

This includes choosing options from dropdown menus and using keyboard shortcuts. "If we're building agents to help people complete everyday tasks using computers, our models need real examples of how people actually use them, things like mouse movements, clicking buttons, and navigating dropdown menus," Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said.

"The vision we are building towards is one where our agents primarily do the work and our role is to direct, review, and help them improve," Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth told employees. According to the report, there's currently no limit on worker surveillance in the United States, so the legalities surrounding this initiative are sound. As for what this means for the future of Meta, it's not a stretch to see how this could lead to further mass layoffs at the company, with employees essentially 'training' their AI Agent replacements by simply doing their work.

And with that, this new report arrives less than a week after another story claiming Meta plans to lay off 10% of its global workforce, starting on May 20, with further similarly large cuts coming later in the year.