‘It’s Undignified’: Hundreds of Workers Training Meta’s AI Could Be Laid Off | EUROtoday

Hundreds of employees in Ireland tasked with refining Meta’s AI fashions have been instructed that their jobs are in danger as the corporate embarks on a sweeping new spherical of layoffs, in line with paperwork obtained by WIRED.

The affected employees are employed by the Dublin-based agency Covalen, which handles numerous content material moderation and labeling providers for Meta.

The employees had been knowledgeable of the layoffs over a quick video assembly on Monday afternoon and weren’t allowed to ask questions, in line with Nick Bennett, one of many staff on the decision. “We had a pretty bad feeling [before the meeting],” he says. “This has happened before.”

In all, greater than 700 staff stand to probably lose their jobs at Covalen, in line with an e mail reviewed by WIRED. Roughly 500 are information annotators. Their job is to test materials generated by Meta’s AI fashions towards the corporate’s guidelines barring harmful and unlawful content material. “It’s essentially training the AI to take over our jobs,” claims one other Covalen worker, who requested to stay nameless for worry of retaliation. “We take actions as the perfect decision for the AI to emulate.”

Sometimes, the work includes cooking up elaborate prompts to attempt to bypass guardrails meant to forestall fashions from serving up youngster sexual abuse materials, say, or descriptions of suicide. “It’s quite a grueling job,” claims Bennett. “You spend your whole day pretending to be a pedophile.”

Last week, Meta introduced plans to chop one in 10 jobs as a part of sweeping layoffs geared toward making the corporate extra environment friendly. A memo circulated by the corporate reportedly indicated that layoffs had been motivated by a necessity to extend spending on different points of the enterprise. Though the memo didn’t point out AI, the corporate lately introduced plans to almost double its spending on the know-how. In January, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg mentioned, “I think that 2026 is going to be the year that AI starts to dramatically change the way that we work.” In the e-mail reviewed by WIRED, Covalen staff had been instructed solely that the layoffs had been a results of “reduced demand and operational requirements.”

In a press release, Meta spokesperson Erica Sackin mentioned: “As we shared in March, over the next few years, Meta will be deploying more advanced AI systems to transform our approach to content enforcement and operations across our platforms, so that it delivers the safety and protection people expect. As we do that, we’ll be reducing our reliance on third-party vendors and strengthening our internal systems.”

The newest spherical of layoffs marks the second time that Covalen has reduce workers in latest months. In November, the corporate introduced plans for job cuts (reportedly to quantity round 400), culminating in a employee strike. Between the 2 rounds of layoffs, Covalen’s headcount in Dublin is on observe to be nearly halved, in line with the Communications Workers’ Union (CWU), whose members embody some Covalen workers.

For affected Covalen employees, the seek for new work can be hampered by a six-month “cooldown period,” throughout which they’re unable to use to a competing Meta vendor, claims the CWU. “It’s undignified, you know,” says the Covalen worker who requested to stay nameless. “It’s rude.”

Covalen didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

Unions representing the affected staff are pushing for Covalen to enter negotiations over severance phrases. They additionally hope to fulfill with the Irish authorities to debate how AI is impacting employees within the nation. “Tech companies are treating the workers whose labor and data helped build AI as disposable,” says Christy Hoffman, common secretary of UNI Global Union. “To fight back, it’s absolutely critical that workers organize and demand notice about the introduction of AI, training linked to employment, and a plan for their futures. Workers should also have the right to refuse to train their AI replacements.”

But a few of these caught up within the layoffs are uncertain of their possibilities of securing secure employment in a labor market being rehewn in actual time by AI and the deep-pocketed corporations main its improvement. “It’s a universal battle between downtrodden white-collar workers and big capital, really,” claims Bennett. “That normally only goes one way.”

Update 4/28/25 3:30pm ET: This story has been up to date to incorporate remark from Meta.