If these allegations are true, this isn’t AI making better decisions. It’s AI scaling discrimination. Automating layoffs doesn’t remove bias if the data or incentives are flawed. Companies should never be allowed to hide behind an algorithm when people’s livelihoods and legal rights are at stake.
this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2026
239 points (99.6% liked)
Technology
86387 readers
3143 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
Pattern recognition and machine learning have been scaling discrimination for decades now. This is the same but more.
Sounds like a single spreadsheet would have done the job.
Wouldnt it be funny if it added a bunch of fake names to pad the list?
No but you see, this way it's the AI's decision and not the spineless manager's or the button pushing HR's. Corporations are all about maximizing individual profits while minimizing individual responsibility.
Not to discount the evil of targeting workers who used the leave they literally are entitled to, but it's also SO lazy to use an AI to generate a list of what's essentially just a RETURN statement from a payroll database. Boo on both counts!
Being on a slack channel for victims of another big tech company's layoffs, I can say for certain that Meta is not the only one laying off a suspiciously large number of people during maternity leave.
For us it was interesting how we're all over 40.
Name and shame. Also, just because we're catching one and not catching all of them, doesn't mean that we can't go after this one. Hopefully, the people you're talking about will go after their employers too.
It's a small enough community that I'd prefer to not out myself.
My only point was that they're probably all doing it. Not that any or all of them shouldn't face consequences.
Also like one of the other comments said, AI for this seems stupid.
victims of another big tech company’s layoffs
The tech sector has been heavily inoculated against any kind of labor solidarity for my entire life. At some point, you can't just be a victim. You've got to fight back. And I don't know if the people getting sucked into and shat out of Silicon Valley year to year have the gumption to do it. Seems like they'll line right back up at Facebook the moment Zuck wants to hire them again, under even worse terms, salaries, and working conditions than when they were kicked out.
The reason is similar to why the hiring process is so stupid. You can’t just flash a degree and get a job. You have to navigate the hazing ritual because engineers are cocky bastards. That cockiness means they think their intelligence alone is all they need in order to secure their career.
Woah, that sounds illegal as hell.
that's because it is.
He could be replaced with AI and AI would def do a better job. He's not only evil, but he keeps trying to do new markets that absolutely suck: Legless Universe, Creep Glasses, Spy on everyone and propagandize them in a closed, addicting environment. Okay, that last one has been really successful.
His next "big idea" is bs prediction markets that he wants to push on 18-34 year olds. Get 'em started gambling young!
Anyone working for meta at this point knows what's up and deserves no sympathy for their business bullshit
I get what you are saying, but say you have a family, any sort of large student loans, and rent to pay to live in a somewhat decent area, you kinda have to take what you can get these days… and they have designed a world for the working class where if you don’t take a job, you are potentially up a really bad creek.
It’s especially worse if you have someone in your family with any sort of medical fragility or if you are H1B and if you don’t find any job, you get deported or put into a camp where you are left to rot.
Blame republicans and neoliberal policies that helped build a world where this is allowed, and the giant companies who have the power and wealth NOT to do this to everyone… not the desperate workers just trying to get by with whatever was available and paid enough that they didn’t have to worry about making rent or paying for needed medical expenses.
I thought that way in the early 2000s when I was laid off from Microsoft. It was a blessing in disguise for me and opened up more doors that I never knew existed.
It's much different world now, but I hope everyone who got laid off recently gets a better job.
