According to Reuters, Meta plans to begin tracking the mouse movements, clicks, and keystrokes of its U.S. employees to generate high-quality training data for future AI agents.
The news organization cited an internal memo posted by the Meta Superintelligence Labs team when reporting on the new Model Capability Initiative employee tracking software. The software will work on specific work-related apps and websites, and will also utilize periodic screenshots to provide context for AI training, according to the memo.
“This is a place where every Meta employee can contribute to improving the model just by doing their day-to-day work,” the memo said, as reported in part by Reuters.
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone told Reuters that the training data collected helps Meta’s AI agents perform sometimes difficult tasks, including “mouse movements, button clicks, drop-down menu navigation, and more.”
“If we’re building an agent to help people use computers to complete everyday tasks, our model needs real-world examples of how people actually use computers,” Stone said, adding that the data collected will not be used to evaluate employees.
While Meta’s U.S. employees will have their behavior tracked by new tracking software, similarly monitoring Meta’s European employees would likely violate a number of national laws that limit how employers can track employee behavior. Meta is facing potential legal trouble in the European Union for forcing users of its social media service to opt out of having their content used for AI training, rather than actively opting in.
