Meta’s plans to replace workers with AI fell flat, report says – Computerworld– www.computerworld.com

Earlier this year, Meta, one of the industry’s loudest AI advocates, was ready to slash up to 60% of the members of some teams and replace them with AI, as part of what it called Project OT (Organization Transformation), an initiative to make Meta “AI native.”

But it backed off at the last minute after internal data showed that the plan wasn’t working out, according to a Reuters investigation published Wednesday. For example, Reuters said, code changes made to the internal software platforms and infrastructure that employees used on the job were up 220% year-over-year, according to an early June post by Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth, yet changes that led to new or upgraded features reaching Meta users were only up 36%.

Meta executives also saw “’reliability warning signs’ caused by the AI coding surge,” according to an internal post, Reuters reported. “Another post, in April, said that unchecked AI agents were performing ‘large-scale, disruptive actions that humans are unlikely to execute.’ The result: Major technical and security incidents, such as service disruptions and possible data leaks, spiked 40% from the previous year, with the time staffers had to spend firefighting them up 70%.”