MGM drops OpenAI film, data center workers protest, Meta leaks employee data

Three news stories from the technology and AI world show how quickly contradictions within the industry are mounting: major corporations are backing away from conflicts of interest, the invisible workforce of data centers is organizing and demanding fair treatment, and giants like Meta continue to allow employee data leaks.

MGM shut down the OpenAI film

Amazon, through its MGM Studios subsidiary, has halted the development of a feature film about OpenAI's history. The studio provided no official explanation, but the underlying reason is obvious: Amazon is a major strategic investor in Anthropic—a direct competitor to OpenAI in the commercial AI models and products segment. Publicly promoting the narrative of a competing company in such a situation would be counterproductive both ethically and commercially.

Hollywood and the AI industry are becoming increasingly intertwined, and not always painlessly. Studios are implementing AI to optimize production and cut costs—this has already sparked the largest strikes by screenwriters and actors in decades. AI companies, for their part, seek access to mass audiences through film and pop culture, and tools to build a positive image. When interests intersect directly—as in the case of Amazon, MGM, and competitive positions on the market—projects get shut down even before filming begins.

Data center workers demand change

Behind the figures about AI corporations' billion-dollar profits stands the physical labor of thousands of people who maintain server equipment in data centers around the world. Conditions in server halls—constant industrial-level noise, high temperatures, emergency mode during outages—have led to an increase in worker protests in the sector. Among the key grievances of personnel:

• High noise and thermal load without adequate protective equipment
• Opaque standards for occupational health and industrial safety
• Compensation that does not match the growth in AI companies' profits
• Weak or effectively absent union representation
• Chronic overtime during periods of peak load

The AI boom has created massive demand for computing infrastructure, and this demand only grows as companies compete on cluster power. At the same time, a key question has become acute: who actually ensures this infrastructure physically—and what are their working conditions? Organized protests by data center personnel are a direct answer.

Meta failed to protect data again

Meta has faced a personal data breach of its own employees. The company did not publicly disclose the scale and exact circumstances of the incident, which itself became a reason for criticism: opacity in such cases typically only compounds reputational damage and spawns waves of speculation.

"A company unable to protect its own employees' data hardly deserves

trust on matters of user data," — such is the typical reaction of industry critics to such incidents.

For Meta, bearing the reputational burden of years of privacy scandals—from Cambridge Analytica to regular major fines in Europe—each new incident strengthens the position of proponents of strict Big Tech regulation. The company is already operating under heightened oversight; another leak only adds ammunition to lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic.

What it means

All three stories share one motif: the AI industry has entered a phase where the costs of growth are becoming politically and socially visible. Conflicts of interest shut down media projects. People who provide the physical foundation of the digital economy demand recognition and fair treatment. And corporations with trillion-dollar market capitalizations continue to allow basic failures in data protection. The industry is growing—but questions are accumulating faster than answers.

*Meta is recognized as an extremist organization and is prohibited in the Russian Federation.