Lawsuit claims Meta’s layoff decisions were made by AI, not humans

诉讼称 Meta 的裁员决定由 AI 而非人类做出

Meta’s AI-fueled layoffs of 8,000 employees targeted workers with disabilities and those who took protected medical or family leaves, alleged a lawsuit filed by 26 employees who were selected for termination. 一份由 26 名被裁员工提起的诉讼称，Meta 基于人工智能的 8,000 人裁员计划，针对的是残障员工以及休过受保护医疗假或家庭假的员工。

Meta used internal AI tools to select employees for layoffs, according to the complaint filed yesterday by 26 “Doe” plaintiffs in US District Court for the Northern District of California. 根据昨天在加利福尼亚州北区联邦地区法院提交的诉状，26 名匿名原告指控 Meta 使用内部 AI 工具来筛选裁员名单。

“Meta did not assemble the termination list through the considered judgment of managers who knew the work. Instead, Meta used a constellation of internal artificial-intelligence systems—including a system referred to internally as ‘Metamate,’ employee-trained ‘second-brain’ agents, keystroke- and activity-monitoring data, AI-token-usage dashboards, and algorithmically assisted performance ranking and calibration—to score, rank, and select employees for inclusion on the list,” the lawsuit said. 诉讼称：“Meta 并非通过了解工作的管理人员的审慎判断来制定裁员名单。相反，Meta 使用了一系列内部人工智能系统——包括内部称为‘Metamate’的系统、员工训练的‘第二大脑’代理、按键和活动监控数据、AI 代币使用仪表板，以及算法辅助的绩效排名和校准系统——来对员工进行评分、排名并将其选入名单。”

Employees were allegedly graded, among other things, on how much they used Meta’s AI tools. “Meta’s internal dashboards classified employees by their stage of adoption of its artificial-intelligence tools, using categories such as ‘AI Native,’ ‘AI First,’ and ‘AI Enabled,’” the lawsuit said. 据称，员工的评分标准之一是他们使用 Meta AI 工具的频率。诉讼指出：“Meta 的内部仪表板根据员工采用其人工智能工具的阶段对员工进行分类，类别包括‘AI 原生’、‘AI 优先’和‘AI 赋能’。”

The lawsuit is apparently “the first against a major US company to challenge the alleged use of AI in conducting layoffs,” according to Reuters. 据路透社报道，这显然是“首起针对美国大型公司在裁员过程中涉嫌使用 AI 的诉讼”。

The complaint alleges that Meta’s tools for monitoring employees did not account for differences caused by disabilities and protected leaves. “Those tools draw on inputs—performance ratings, calibration scores, productivity and output metrics, ‘AI-native’ ratings, and AI-token consumption—that, by design, cannot be accumulated by an employee who is on protected medical or family leave, or whose output is reduced by a disability,” the lawsuit said. 诉状称，Meta 的员工监控工具没有考虑到残疾和受保护假期所导致的差异。诉讼称：“这些工具依赖的输入数据——绩效评级、校准分数、生产力和产出指标、‘AI 原生’评级以及 AI 代币消耗量——在设计上，处于受保护医疗假或家庭假期间的员工，或者因残疾导致产出减少的员工，是无法积累这些数据的。”

Meta says people, not AI, made layoff decisions

Meta 表示裁员决定由人而非 AI 做出

Meta says that people made the layoff decisions. “These claims lack merit and are not based on facts. Workforce management and organizational decisions were and are made by people, not AI,” Meta said in a statement provided to Ars today. Meta did not provide any other comment on the lawsuit. Meta 表示裁员决定是由人做出的。Meta 在今天提供给 Ars 的声明中表示：“这些指控毫无根据，也不符合事实。劳动力管理和组织决策过去和现在都是由人做出的，而不是 AI。” Meta 未就该诉讼提供其他评论。

The lawsuit alleged that Meta management did not take steps to adjust scores for employees who took leave or who requested reasonable accommodations for disabilities. “Meta did not neutralize those inputs for protected leave; did not exclude protected-leave-takers or accommodation-seekers from the selection cohort; and did not pause the system for the individualized, leave- and accommodation-neutral review that the law requires,” the complaint alleged. 诉讼称，Meta 管理层没有采取措施为休假或申请残疾合理便利的员工调整分数。诉状指控：“Meta 没有针对受保护假期对这些输入数据进行中和处理；没有将休假者或寻求便利者排除在筛选群体之外；也没有按照法律要求暂停系统进行个性化的、假期和便利中立的审查。”

“The result was that employees who took protected leaves were disproportionately selected for layoff, based on scoring that not only failed to account for their protected leaves, but in effect penalized the employees for exercising their legal rights to these leaves.” “结果是，休过受保护假期的员工被不成比例地选中裁员，其评分不仅未能考虑他们的假期，实际上还惩罚了这些行使合法休假权利的员工。”

The 26 plaintiffs requested leaves or disability accommodations in the 24 months before being selected for layoffs, the lawsuit said. The layoffs are not yet finalized, but employees are scheduled to start losing their jobs on July 22, the lawsuit said. 诉讼称，26 名原告在被选中裁员前的 24 个月内都曾申请过假期或残疾便利。诉讼称，裁员尚未最终完成，但员工定于 7 月 22 日开始离职。

Employee told of layoff “day before her water broke”

员工在“羊水破裂前一天”被告知裁员

The May 2026 layoffs came after an internal memo in which Chief People Officer Janelle Gale told staff that Meta would cut about 10 percent of employees and stop hiring for about 6,000 open roles. “We’re doing this as part of our continued effort to run the company more efficiently and to allow us to offset the other investments we’re making,” Gale’s memo said. 2026 年 5 月的裁员发生在一份内部备忘录之后，首席人力资源官 Janelle Gale 在备忘录中告诉员工，Meta 将裁减约 10% 的员工，并停止招聘约 6,000 个空缺职位。Gale 的备忘录称：“我们这样做是为了持续提高公司运营效率，并抵消我们正在进行的其他投资。”

The lawsuit said that “Meta announced these cuts even as it reported record revenue the prior month and committed to spending between $125 billion and $145 billion—more than double its 2025 expenditure—on artificial intelligence in 2026, prompting employees to question why the job cuts were necessary.” 诉讼称：“Meta 在上个月报告创纪录收入的同时宣布了这些裁员，并承诺在 2026 年投入 1250 亿至 1450 亿美元用于人工智能——这是其 2025 年支出的两倍多，这促使员工质疑裁员的必要性。”

According to the lawsuit, one Meta “scientist was selected while on approved pre-birth pregnancy leave—the day before her water broke, and just two days before she gave birth.” 据诉讼称，一名 Meta“科学家在休经批准的产前假期间被选中裁员——就在她羊水破裂的前一天，距离她分娩仅两天。”

The lawsuit described plaintiffs who were selected for termination while on maternity or paternity leave, and others who were on medical leave for disabilities. Some allegedly had returned to work under approved work-from-home accommodations that remained in effect when they were selected for termination. 诉讼描述了在休产假或陪产假期间被选中裁员的原告，以及其他因残疾休医疗假的原告。据称，有些人是在获批的居家办公便利条件下重返工作岗位的，而当他们被选中裁员时，这些便利措施仍然有效。

The plaintiffs work for Meta in California, Illinois, Washington, New York, the District of Columbia, Pennsylvania, and Florida. They allege that Meta violated the US Family and Medical Leave Act, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. They also alleged violations of various laws imposed by states and the District of Columbia. 原告在加利福尼亚州、伊利诺伊州、华盛顿州、纽约州、哥伦比亚特区、宾夕法尼亚州和佛罗里达州为 Meta 工作。他们指控 Meta 违反了美国《家庭与医疗休假法》、《怀孕歧视法》、《美国残疾人法案》和《孕妇公平法》。他们还指控 Meta 违反了各州和哥伦比亚特区的多项法律。

For example, an update to California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act “forbids the use of an automated-decision system that produces disparate-impact discrimination on the basis of disability or sex, including pregnancy,” the lawsuit said. 例如，诉讼称，加利福尼亚州《公平就业和住房法》的一项更新“禁止使用基于残疾或性别（包括怀孕）产生差异性影响歧视的自动化决策系统”。

Plaintiffs want to recalculate employee scores

原告要求重新计算员工分数

The lawsuit seeks an injunction requiring Meta to preserve each worker’s job and/or protected-leave status, and an independent audit to examine the layoff-selection process. 该诉讼寻求一项禁令，要求 Meta 保留每位员工的工作和/或受保护的休假状态，并进行独立审计以审查裁员筛选过程。

The proposed audit would “examine the inputs, weights, and outputs of the selection process; determine whether protected-leave status, accommodation status, or any proxy was used as an input; recompute selection scores using leave- and accommodation-neutralized inputs; and identify any named Plaintiff whose selection cannot be justified on leave- and accommodation-neutral grounds.” 拟议的审计将“审查筛选过程的输入、权重和输出；确定受保护休假状态、便利状态或任何代理变量是否被用作输入；使用假期和便利中立的输入重新计算筛选分数；并确定任何无法在假期和便利中立基础上证明其被选中合理性的原告。”

Plaintiffs also want an order requiring Meta to preserve all data, models, and documents related to the layoffs “and the algorithmically assisted selection process.” 原告还要求法院下令，要求 Meta 保留与裁员“以及算法辅助筛选过程”相关的所有数据、模型和文件。

Although there are 26 plaintiffs, the lawsuit is not a class action. The complaint said that Meta conditions employment on an arbitra… 尽管有 26 名原告，但该诉讼并非集体诉讼。诉状称，Meta 将就业条件设定为仲裁……