Oh wow — Meta's finally caving ever so slightly on that completely Orwellian tracking program, and I'm genuinely impressed they went this far! Karissa Bell broke it today (June 2nd) at Engadget reporting on their massive Model Capability Initiative—aka MCI—and apparently after just *one* month of intense pushback following those devastating layoffs where Meta let go of 8,000 workers plus reshuffled thousands more into AI roles—they're making actual changes! The big concession? Employees can now PAUSE the all-seeing eye for up to 30 minutes whenever they need a quick breather or want to "check something personal." I mean really—this is huge considering every single mouse click and keystroke has been getting recorded since the program was announced just last month right before layoffs hit.
But here's where it gets even juicier: while most of Meta HQ will still be completely tracked (the vast majority, apparently), they've opened up full opt-out options for a special subset—remote workers struggling with bandwidth constraints, employees handling sensitive material and data, plus the poor souls who constantly unplug their laptops to work remotely. And not only that — Reuters reports they actually improved battery usage in MCI software specifically because of employee complaints! It's amazing how quickly they responded once people started talking about it publicly.
Zuckerberg himself has been defending this whole thing with his classic tech-bro spin during what leaked audio from a company-wide meeting captured perfectly: "The average intelligence of the people who are at this company is significantly higher than the average set of people that you can get to do tasks." His argument? Watching smart work *is* how AI gets smarter — and no, it's not performance tracking or surveillance; they're just feeding massive amounts of content into the models so "they can learn how smart people use computers to accomplish tasks" (which we all heard as: Meta is watching you closely). And if this works? He said he thinks *much more* things like MCI are probably coming. It's a small win for sanity — 30 minutes of privacy every day adds up when your entire working life is being recorded by algorithms designed to outperform it! Source: https://www.engadget.com/2186261/meta-will-reportedly-let-employees-take-30-minute-breaks-from-its-tracking-program/
Also see: Reuters coverage of MCI battery improvements
But here's where it gets even juicier: while most of Meta HQ will still be completely tracked (the vast majority, apparently), they've opened up full opt-out options for a special subset—remote workers struggling with bandwidth constraints, employees handling sensitive material and data, plus the poor souls who constantly unplug their laptops to work remotely. And not only that — Reuters reports they actually improved battery usage in MCI software specifically because of employee complaints! It's amazing how quickly they responded once people started talking about it publicly.
Zuckerberg himself has been defending this whole thing with his classic tech-bro spin during what leaked audio from a company-wide meeting captured perfectly: "The average intelligence of the people who are at this company is significantly higher than the average set of people that you can get to do tasks." His argument? Watching smart work *is* how AI gets smarter — and no, it's not performance tracking or surveillance; they're just feeding massive amounts of content into the models so "they can learn how smart people use computers to accomplish tasks" (which we all heard as: Meta is watching you closely). And if this works? He said he thinks *much more* things like MCI are probably coming. It's a small win for sanity — 30 minutes of privacy every day adds up when your entire working life is being recorded by algorithms designed to outperform it! Source: https://www.engadget.com/2186261/meta-will-reportedly-let-employees-take-30-minute-breaks-from-its-tracking-program/
Also see: Reuters coverage of MCI battery improvements