{"slug": "metas-months-old-ai-unit-is-a-soul-crushing-gulag-say-the-engineers-stuck-inside", "title": "Meta’s months-old AI unit is a soul-crushing gulag, say the engineers stuck inside it", "summary": "Meta's Applied AI unit, formed three months ago with 6,500 engineers and product managers, is facing internal revolt as employees describe forced transfers, soul-crushing work generating puzzles for AI training, and a toxic culture. An employee hijacked a livestreamed presentation to berate a senior executive, while over 1,600 staff signed a petition against monitoring clicks and keystrokes for AI data. CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged the distress in an internal memo, admitting mistakes.", "body_md": "Anyone who works at Meta or knows anyone who works at Meta will tell you the same thing: it is not a happy place, particularly given the seemingly [endless](https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/14/meta-layoffs-10000-more-workers-to-be-cut-in-restructuring.html) [layoffs](https://techcrunch.com/2023/05/24/meta-conducts-yet-another-round-of-layoffs/) the company has [executed](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/18/metas-layoffs-starting-this-week-underscore-zuckerbergs-ai-reality-.html) over the [last few years](https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/23/meta-job-cuts-10-percent-8000-employees/) — cuts that have only accelerated as the company funnels billions into AI.\n\nNow, a [new report](https://www.wired.com/story/mark-zuckerberg-meta-employee-meeting-interrupt-ai/) in Wired suggests the company’s Applied AI team is on the verge of revolt.\n\nThe drama kicked off when someone hijacked a livestreamed, employee-only presentation this week with an expletive-laden meltdown, demanding that attendees tell a senior Meta AI executive that he was “a piece of sh_t.” One presenter reportedly covered their face with their hands.\n\nThat outburst, Wired reports, reflects simmering rage inside the three-month-old unit of roughly 6,500 engineers and product managers who have been tasked with supporting the company’s AI research ambitions.\n\nEmployees describe being forced into the group with no real choice: join or quit. Many call themselves “draftees.” Their assigned work? Generating puzzles and coding problems to train AI models. “It’s literally the gulag,” one employee told Wired. “Most people find the work soul-crushing,” said another.\n\nMeanwhile, more than 1,600 Meta employees across the company have signed a petition protesting a program that monitors their clicks and keystrokes for AI training data. Even Meta’s chief product officer, Chris Cox, called the current environment “brutal” in a call with employees this week.\n\nTechCrunch has reached out to Meta for comment.\n\nAccording to earlier reports, the Applied AI team is led by Maher Saba, who was previously a vice president in Meta’s Reality Labs division, the division that burned through [$83 billion](https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/29/meta-is-still-burning-money-on-ar-vr/) on the metaverse before Meta moved on to AI. The new organization reports up to Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth.\n\nOriginally, it was structured in such a way that up to 50 employees reported to one manager.\n\nCEO Mark Zuckerberg, for his part, reportedly addressed the situation in an internal memo Friday, acknowledging that recent changes had “caused distress” and admitting the company had made mistakes that it plans to address. According to Wired, he added in his memo that “Meta’s north star is to be the best place for the most talented people in the world to make an impact.”", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/metas-months-old-ai-unit-is-a-soul-crushing-gulag-say-the-engineers-stuck-inside", "canonical_source": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/12/metas-months-old-ai-unit-is-a-soul-crushing-gulag-say-the-engineers-stuck-inside-it/", "published_at": "2026-06-12 23:00:54+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-06-12 23:17:45.512676+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-ethics", "ai-policy"], "entities": ["Meta", "Applied AI", "Maher Saba", "Andrew Bosworth", "Chris Cox", "Mark Zuckerberg", "Reality Labs", "Wired"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/metas-months-old-ai-unit-is-a-soul-crushing-gulag-say-the-engineers-stuck-inside", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/metas-months-old-ai-unit-is-a-soul-crushing-gulag-say-the-engineers-stuck-inside.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/metas-months-old-ai-unit-is-a-soul-crushing-gulag-say-the-engineers-stuck-inside.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/metas-months-old-ai-unit-is-a-soul-crushing-gulag-say-the-engineers-stuck-inside.jsonld"}}