Report: Meta will train AI agents by tracking employees' mouse, keyboard use

Source: Ars Technica

Overview

Meta will begin tracking mouse movements, clicks, and keystrokes of its US employees to generate high‑quality training data for future AI agents, Reuters reports.

Details of the Initiative

• Internal memos from the Meta Superintelligence Labs team describe the new Model Capability Initiative employee‑tracking software.
• The software will operate on specific work‑related apps and websites and will also capture periodic screenshots to provide context for AI training, according to the memo.
• “This is where all Meta employees can help our models get better simply by doing their daily work,” the memo reads.

Meta spokesperson Andy Stone told Reuters that the collected training data will help Meta’s AI agents with tasks that it sometimes struggles with, including “things like mouse movements, clicking buttons, and navigating dropdown menus.” He added that the data would not be used to evaluate employees.

Legal Considerations

While US employees will be tracked, monitoring European Meta employees would likely run afoul of a number of national laws limiting how an employer can track employee actions. Meta has faced potential legal problems in the European Union for forcing users of its social media services to opt out of having their content used for AI training, rather than affirmatively opting in.