Inside the Applied AI Unit: Meta Engineers Call Internal Shift a Gulag

The unit, comprised of roughly 6,500 engineers and product managers, was formed to accelerate Meta’s research ambitions. Many staff members describe their transfer as involuntary, labeling themselves as draftees forced to choose between the new assignment or resignation. Their daily tasks involve generating coding problems and puzzles to train AI models, a grind that has drawn comparisons to a gulag among the workforce.

Beyond the daily drudgery, 1,600 employees have signed a petition opposing a program that tracks their keystrokes and clicks to generate AI training data. Even Chief Product Officer Chris Cox characterized the current internal environment as brutal during a recent call. The team operates under Maher Saba, a former Reality Labs vice president who oversaw the division that previously burned through $83 billion on the metaverse. CEO Mark Zuckerberg addressed the unrest in an internal memo Friday, acknowledging that recent organizational changes caused distress and pledging to address the company's missteps.