Meta employee tensions surface as layoffs, lawsuit follow AI push
The New York moratorium, enacted recently, halts approvals for large data center projects for one year, according to the Wall Street Journal’s AI & Business newsletter. Maine’s legislature approved a similar ban, but the governor vetoed it, the newspaper reported. The actions reflect growing political opposition to the power and water consumption of large AI data centers, as well as concerns about resource consumption and societal dangers.
In South Korea, workers at Hyundai Motor went on a partial strike over the company’s plan to potentially deploy humanoid robots in its factories, the Journal reported. The labor action is believed to be the first of its kind in the global auto industry, signaling that AI-related job displacement fears are spreading beyond the technology sector.
Meta Platforms provides the largest and most acute example of the backlash so far, according to the Journal. Company-employee tensions frayed after Meta’s full embrace of AI, leading to the layoff of thousands of people this year. One measure of employee sentiment fell to its lowest level ever, the newspaper reported. Former employees then sued, claiming Meta used AI to target workers with disabilities or who were on parental or medical leave.
The spread of moratoria could push developers to less politically risky locations, but even then, the limited availability of sites with adequate power and water remains a constraint, the Journal reported. Costs across the computing supply chain are already rising because of surging demand for memory, and further cost pressures could cause companies to pull back on projects, the newspaper added.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the social and political pushback against AI is likely to escalate in step with how effective the technology is at replacing human labor, and how much the computing power behind it affects people’s lives and the environment.