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Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

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Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#321

Post by CuriouslyC »

sterlind wrote: post #253
vanuatu wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its fantasy scale ai's value prop was catching people like this

what about just... becoming mediocre? engineers are already infamously lazy at reviewing PRs. how is Meta incentivizing these Data Labelers to give a shit and actually scrutinize the AI-generated code they're supposed to be reviewing? what's the reward structure? what prevents engineers from flagging minor nitpicks all day while they look at LinkedIn?

Probably forcing them to review each other's work to panopticon "quality," and keeping track of the average throughput per engineer so if people fall behind the taskmasters can pay them a visit.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#322

Post by ergocoder »

simoncion wrote: post #221
ergocoder wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People act surprised when they are tracked on a corporate machine lmao. Do they go to Apple Store and login it to their personal account on the showcase iphone and yell at the genius employees?

I remember personally hearing about a Big Tech rank-and-file employee who was trying very, very hard to work around Infosec protections on his company-issued laptop that were preventing him from installing some video game with super-invasive kernel-level anticheat. So, yeah, people do absolutely braindead shit with their company-furnished equipment. It's fucking mind-boggling.

On top of that, the company hasn't never hidden the fact that everything on the machine is tracked.

Everyone on the planet is saying this. Every new hire orientation likely states this.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#323

Post by dansquizsoft »

layer8 wrote: post #59
vanuatu wrote: post #38

"It’s literally the gulag" - okay this was a funny comment its unclear to me why they need their model to be the best at coding (maybe to build an internal technical moat?)

Because coding appears to be the most monetizable use of AI, for some time to come.

But Meta's had so much success in this area by copying the leading lans already!

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#324

Post by pesus »

NuclearPM wrote: post #235
pesus wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also notable that they willingly and knowingly allowed FB to be used to facilitate genocide, which makes them culpable in it.

Can you elaborate?

I'm referring to the 2016 genocide in Myanmar:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/world/amnesty-report-finds-...

https://systemicjustice.org/article/facebook-and-genocide-ho...

In short:

> Facebook contributed to a genocide in Myanmar. Scholars, reporters, and United Nations investigators agree that the social media giant played a role in an explosion of ethnic conflict in 2017 that led to the death and displacement of hundreds of thousands Rohingya Muslims in Northern Myanmar.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#325

Post by toast0 »

ironman1478 wrote: post #70

Having worked at meta, something I noticed is that the orgs that were well run were ones that were bought. WhatsApp, reality, insta, etc. I worked in an org that was not associated with those products and was purely homegrown and it was awful. Things got done but horribly inefficiently due to over hiring and extreme requirement and schedule shifts. I believe that the cultures that were developed outside of Meta are u…

Having had my employer bought by FB, there were some exceptional teams in FB that were nice to work with, but those weren't really running like regular FB teams, so there you go. I really hoped the FB orgs would change, at least a bit, to reflect the purchased org, but I guess that was my repressed optimism showing up. :P

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#326

Post by johannes1234321 »

rickypp wrote: post #308
jazzyjackson wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s doing a great job making sure I know where Burger King is when zooming into a city

I started to notice "Turn left at the light, after the Chipotle™" last year... ads in my turn by turn navigation is next level innovation

I believe that the initial idea there was to refer to notable landmarks and these company signs are readable from a distance.

But yes, they could serve well as ad space.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#327

Post by karel-3d »

mancerayder wrote: post #58
fabian2k wrote: post #4

> 30-50% of engineers on core teams have been forcefully reassigned to data labeling and RLHF, upsetting folks even more. This really doesn't sound believable to me, but who knows with all the craziness going on. Software developers in the US are seriously expensive, using them for data labeling would be a waste of resources. And the percentage sounds very high, unless "core teams" is only a small subset of the total…

Isn't that Scale AI investment in a company that does labeling? what are we missing? Are we all going to be labelers soon too?

Yes

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#328

Post by karel-3d »

tagyro wrote: post #212

Meta laid off around 2,000 employees this year and in April they announced a further 10% planned cut in their workforce [0]. Employees were told to work from home and were sent emails at 4AM informing them they've been let go. Those that weren't impacted have software on their computer that tracks their every move. Remaining employees can now opt out of being tracked at work for half an hour [1]. Meanwhile, @Meta is…

It's hard to find a job right now

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#329

Post by Avicebron »

mlsu wrote: post #315
torben-friis wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's just one more show of how addicted to the algorithm people are. The difference here is that this particular wave of propaganda hits people whose actions have deep effects on their industries, so their unreasonable actions are far more visible.

I haven't seen anyone really talking about this, but we've seen many very public and powerful people have what is objectively a psychotic break, due to the content algorithm, AI, or both. We already know what the algorithm does to normal people - it should be treated like a radioactive object by anyone in charge of anything. Very powerful and strictly used judiciously and in small doses. Instead we've got some of the…

The mistake is thinking "the most powerful people on earth" aren't just like anyone else.

Maybe we should tackle the "wealth is transcendence" psychosis first.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#330

Post by mplanchard »

qwerpy wrote: post #261
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you’re comfortable knowing that your job is paid for by destroying society, It's so easy to reduce things! I'm still trying to figure out if my cousin who decorates offices for FAANG is destroying society or not.

It must be exhausting having someone like that (the person you replied to) in your life. So negative, judgmental, and filled with hate. Have to be careful about everything you do and say around them or you’ll be labeled as some kind of -ist or destroying the world.

Y’all are not good at reading comprehension, is the only label I’ll apply to you here. I’ve had good friends work for Meta, and I don’t judge them for it. I wouldn’t work there, because how I feel about the company means I can’t feel good about myself contributing to it in any significant way. Other people will feel differently, and, again, that’s fine.

But if you fundamentally disagree with a system, trying to avoid contributing to it in any way makes sense! Whether it’s making the algorithm or addictive more farming out moderation to underpaid contractors or building a cool open source library for frontend coding or whatever, you can choose not to do it.

Or you can say, my contribution is not meaningful enough to the broader organization for me to worry about my place in it. Or you can say, I will siphon money out of the beast and use it for good. You are still contributing to it, but how you feel about it is up to you.

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