Meta's AI unit is a gulag, says the team that built it

Engineers at Meta's AI division have started calling it a "soul-crushing gulag" — a pretty vivid way to describe an AI team that's been around long enough to know what it's supposed to be but still feels like it's running on pure adrenaline.

The unit has grown fast, as these things do. But the pace hasn't slowed down. Engineers say the work is relentless, the expectations keep moving, and there's not much room to breathe once you're inside. It's the kind of place where you can build something huge and still feel like you're working yourself to the bone for it.

This is what the AI boom looks like up close. Lots of money, lots of ambition, a lot of people pushing hard to get it done before the next wave comes. For the comunidad, it matters because the tools being built inside these units — the ones that'll eventually run our apps, our work, our money — come from exhausted engineers who are still figuring out what they're building. If the work is going to shape how la gente live and work, we should pay attention to how the people building it are living and working.

Why this matters for us: the AI tools you'll be using are being built by people who are running themselves into the ground — and the quality of those tools depends on whether the teams that build them have the space to actually think.