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Meta is preparing for a shareholder showdown at its annual investor meeting today over the growing threats of generative artificial intelligence.
The tech giant’s shareholders are pushing it to share an annual report of the costs associated with gen AI—including financial, reputational, legal and regulatory—plus how it will protect people from misinformation and measure that effectiveness.
“With the issues with AI, we’re concerned with Meta’s inability to evaluate, particularly advertising and paid content related to the elections,” said Christina O’Connell, manager of shareholder engagement at Ekō, a corporate accountability organization representing Meta’s retail shareholders.
Activist shareholder initiatives are common, but proposals relevant to AI are a more recent occurrence, according to Gary Kibel, a privacy and data security lawyer at Davis+Gilbert. Microsoft and Apple faced similar proposals at their respective annual meetings.
The upcoming U.S. and global elections—plus Meta’s plans to scale investment in AI from $5 billion to $40 billion by the end of 2024, per its first-quarter earnings report—make the matter more urgent for the company’s shareholders.
The proposal was co-filed by Arjuna Capital (asset manager), Open MIC and Ekō—all representing Meta’s investors.
What does Meta say?
Before the annual meeting, shareholders get to submit questions on resolutions filed with the company months in advance. The company then responds to these resolutions.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Meta already opposes these AI resolutions, saying that its existing policies and self-regulatory measures are sufficient.
In its statement, the platform said its adoption of responsible AI principles, board oversight, investments in combating misinformation and disinformation and the development of watermarking tools provides “visibility into the impact of our products.”
Investors point out that none of these measures assess the return on that investment or the potential losses the company could face if it is found liable for harms associated with these unpredictable tools.
What’s the deal with Meta’s voting?
Shareholders will vote on the issue at the meeting.