Amazon driver quits over AI-powered safety cameras in delivery vehicles
businessinsider.com
businessinsider.com
But I just don't see the cause for outrage over this - as long as the system really is focused on the safety of drivers and other road users.
Sure, over-work is an issue for Amazon, but it's an issue for all freight/delivery/transport companies, particularly when the company is engaging private contractors, as they can't control how long a driver works, how fatigued they are, and how much they adhere to other safety practices like seatbelts.
I'm all for criticising Amazon and other companies when they really do go wrong and treat workers poorly, but what is the real evidence that this is such a case? How do we know this is anything other than a bona fide effort to ensure drivers are operating safely for the benefit of themselves and other road users?
The reference to AI in the article makes it sound dystopian, but isn't this potentially better, if it just means that computation is used to detect any issues rather than having humans watching their fellow workers?
If this program fails, management will blame it on a failure of AI, because that is their character. But we all know that it's easy to place blame on something that can't fight back.
> 'The system then uses "automated verbal alerts" to tell drivers if a violation has been detected.'
'Automated verbal alert' is the exact opposite of a real-live person.
The article further says:
> 'Amazon told Insider in February driver footage was not automatically available to Amazon and that the "live feed" was triggered only after the detection of a safety or policy violation.'
So where are you getting 'berated by a real-live person?'
The live feed being triggered allows Amazon to have access to the footage, yes. It may be something their manager may talk to them about. But there's absolutely no evidence that this system allows someone to remote in and yell: "No yawning on the job. Get back to work, serf."
And no one has defined berate here.
Let's imagine that the system allows real-time chatting between someone at Amazon HQ and the driver, despite no evidence of this. But we'll pretend.
If driver is breaking the speed limit, not wearing their seat-belt, or participating in other unsafe behavior, they're putting both the public and Amazon at risk. It's entirely reasonable for Amazon to detect a driver speeding in a residential neighborhood, and be able to communicate with that driver in real time to ensure they're driving at safe speeds for the area.
Where did it say "berated"?. Outside of the stance "I've already decided I distrust anything Amazon does", what facts do we have that this "live feed" is anything more then a welfare checkin to make sure the driver is OK, or something else non-malicious and sincerely focused on safety?
And as I posed in another comment, what incentive does Amazon have for it to be anything other than this, given that if it really does lead to more privacy intrusions, many more staff will quit and regulators would take action?
They could have calculated that productivity increases due to the nanny cam were worth any blowback from unhappy workers and regulators. At this point the workers don't trust what Amazon says. The cameras will be viewed by workers with mistrust and they will assume they are being watched constantly and the "safety" purpose is bs. Amazon probably knows this, even if they intend it to actually be used for safety. This is the same reason some convenience stores put up fake cameras.
They are a beurocratic organization with middle managers doing everything they can to squeeze productivity gains out everything and every one. There may be some good guys in there but those good guys don't have their careers grow. The managers without morals rise to the top while shit rolls down hill and the guys on the bottom get worse and worse treatment.
That makes no sense. Deeply/continually unhappy workers are less productive, especially if they leave. And action from regulators is bad for productivity, especially when laws are enforced via court action/penalties or when new laws imposed.
This line of commentary is just-so narrative to uphold the position that everything Amazon does is evil. But it doesn't demonstrate that Amazon actually has the incentive to do said evil things.
It sounds like what you don't like is technocracy, which I can agree is harmful at times.
Put yourself in the shoes of each layer of a bureaucratic organization like Amazon. Most will be normal rational actors that are self interested. Most will want to make more money and advance their career. For those on the very bottom of society, working a warehouse job will mean a few more dollars more than minimum wage and it will be one of the best opportunities available to them. They will not enjoy it and it will be hard work but they will do it because making 25k a year at McDonald's will not put enough food on their families tables.
Then you have those slightly better off that are lucky enough to get a chance at an amazing ~20-25 dollars an hour as a driver. It will be hard work but again, they will grit their teeth and bare it because there is the height of what they can attain in life and it will put food on the table and a few gifts under the tree at Christmas.
Then you have the managers just above that first layer. They themselves are micromanaged and are glorified baby sitters whose job it is to get a whole bunch of unhappy people to be productive. They themselves want to provide better for their families and they will seek to improve their career. They are NOT solely evaluated on how quickly they can shuffle boxes around, else they would give raises to motivate their employees. They instead have to bend over backwards to produce results while keeping costs low. They have very few options to do well and are forced to do things that will make those on the bottom unhappy. They will do things like cut hours off employees so that they are no longer full time so that they don't have to pay health insurance. They will be lax on safety because it's worth the risk to them. The ones good at squeezing the bottom rung will get promoted and so on. It is a darwinian survival of the fittest with rational actors on every rung.
Should we tell those on the bottom tough shit, you should be thankful you're not working at McDonald's? Or do we all say you know what that incentive structure seems bad, that Amazon company has billions of dollars of cash laying around, it doesn't seem fair that our fellow citizens have to trudge through life miserably and that we should enact some laws to make their lives less bad? Why is a little bit softer version of capitalism so bad? We live in a shared society where those on the lower rung have it hard. We are all on the same team here and there is plenty of prosperity to share around. Meet and talk to people who are on that lower rung. Try to get to know them and understand their viewpoint, the struggles that they go through and what their lives look like.
My point was that the author isn't talking about the poor, they're talking about a problem with technocracy that seeks to define you by metrics. As a SRE you should be keenly aware of the shortcomings of such approaches.
The story you've told here is not far from the journey I had as a software engineer coming from the military in the Midwest and South, and even at similar hourly rates.
If you look at my other comment, we likely have the same views, but I'm not focused on how it's projected on different classes. I'm focused on the practice itself.
> Should we tell those on the bottom tough shit, you should be thankful you're not working at McDonald's? Or do we all say you know what that incentive structure seems bad, that Amazon company has billions of dollars of cash laying around, it doesn't seem fair that our fellow citizens have to trudge through life miserably and that we should enact some laws to make their lives less bad? Why is a little bit softer version of capitalism so bad? We live in a shared society where those on the lower rung have it hard. We are all on the same team here and there is plenty of prosperity to share around. Meet and talk to people who are on that lower rung. Try to get to know them and understand their viewpoint, the struggles that they go through and what their lives look like.
This is rich. You assumed I've always had money. You assumed my political allegiances. You assumed I've never existed on a "lower rung".
That's all narrative, so in a way, you made my point for me. You've now distracted from the debate entirely and have earned a second person who doesn't want to hear what you have to say.
You did assume things about me and that was wrong. You "and others" have to share this forum with a great many people, people who come from both prestigious backgrounds and people without. If you want to convince someone of something then you end up having to speak to them on their turf. You can't engage in moralizing language or act condescendingly, as you did me. It tunes people out and makes them perpetual enemies of not just you, but your cause.
This obsession with talk of power is very murky and non-descriptive. Even the class-warfare talk is murky. They're not points you're going to win with conservatives if that's the discussion you're thinking you're going to offer "different perspectives" on. When I talk to conservatives I talk to them about economics on their level. They have poor people too, Democrats spent years making fun of their "poor and uneducated". On Friday I had a manager tell me all about how "blue collar and uneducated" people in the South are a problem, simply because I'm from the South. It was astonishing rhetoric, but not uncommon from certain communities. Nobody will listen to garbage like that and I certainly wouldn't if I were them.
Instead, I talk to conservatives about how the education system misses the mark when it comes to portions of the population, which includes them and liberals, and how better education is a driving force in not only a better economy but their lower classes as well. Assuming people don't have empathy for the poor is where people get things twisted. Many people who present arguments that tow a hard-line on economics came from tough backgrounds as well. In their worldview, the world is a tough-to-survive place and that is just a fact of life to them. Upending that worldview can't be done with moralism, shame, or guilt. It must be addressed through understanding and empathy, none of which you would've communicated in your earlier response.
I think the class narrative is extremely pertinent to this discussion. The "meh, if you don't like it, don't work there" type of argument when applied to this article doesn't hold as much water when there aren't much better alternatives for drivers like this to make as much money.
> Yeah, this is a bit narrative-y.
This comment and others in this post that summarily dismisses an argument because it is part of a "narrative" kind of forces one to make assumptions. This shortly worded retort made me assume that you fell into the hyper capitalist/anti raising minimum wage type crowd. The only assumption I made about you was that you were currently more than likely a tech worker that was more well off than the majority of society. I argue against the tech savior complex where large tech companies can do no wrong whenever I can.
> Assuming people don't have empathy for the poor is where people get things twisted. Many people who present arguments that tow a hard-line on economics came from tough backgrounds as well. In their worldview, the world is a tough-to-survive place and that is just a fact of life to them. Upending that worldview can't be done with moralism, shame, or guilt. It must be addressed through understanding and empathy, none of which you would've communicated in your earlier response.
I disagree that my comments did not touch on empathy. My whole point was to describe the viewpoints from the various cogs in the machine with an eye towards establishing empathy for those cogs and the shitty position each of those cogs is in. I absolutely agree that high level conservative/progressive talking points that are shouted at the opposing side does nothing except to further tribalize the two opposing viewpoints. The political party abstractions used to justify policies abstract out the humans that are impacted by those policies and they make it easier for people to stay adamant that they are correct and the other side is wrong. "Moralism, shame, or guilt" have a lot of overlap with empathy. One does not have shame or guilt without empathy and if someone feels shame or guilt for a given topic, then to me that sounds like progress and compromise are attainable. The only route that I see to stopping this tribalism bullshit is with using empathy to humanize both sides in an attempt to help people realize that we are all on the same team (unless someone is some sociopath that is on their own team). I'm not sure I completely understand why my points were so offensive for you specifically. I honestly meant no offense and did not think that attempting to establish empathy would be a controversial argument path.
There is such a thing as government-mandated conditions in most places even in the US (I'm not from the US but I'm not that stupid), and even if not, at a certain point people are better off doing nothing than being so badly abused, and there is always a better option below a certain level of mistreatment.
This commentary is just-so narrative, not serious discussion.
I'm bouncing out for some sleep, thanks.
Government-mandated conditions are on paper only, are often abused and the boundaries are always stretched out to the breaking point.
> at a certain point people are better off doing nothing than being so badly abused, and there is always a better option below a certain level of mistreatment.
You're underestimating the amount of rampant poverty and unemployment without benefits in the US. You're un
> This commentary is just-so narrative, not serious discussion.
Why don't you engage in a discussion to try to see the other side's opinion. Shouting "It's a narrative" and plugging your ears is not some trump card that automatically wins an argument.
Others and myself are not some socialist cabal secretly trying to take down capitalism. I get paid way too much for stuff that doesn't feel like a real job. I love capitalism but don't see why we can't have a softer flavor of it. It is tough on the bottom rung of society and companies like Amazon have the resources to make lots of people happy and content with their jobs.
I've been engaging in discussion with the other side for over 20 hours and have written over a dozen comments, in a good faith effort to fully understand every other commenter's position. Hardly plugging my ears.
> I get paid way too much for stuff that doesn't feel like a real job. I love capitalism
For what it's worth, neither of those statements apply to me.
I've never earned huge amounts of money, I work long and stressful hours for the income I make, and I'm deeply curious about different economic and social systems that can make life better for people, particularly those at the very bottom.
The reason I engage in a discussion like this is to better understand what the real underlying issues are and what solutions are available.
I get dispirited when the arguments come down to simplistic takes to the effect that it's all simply a matter of evil giant corporations paying too little and treating workers badly, and if they just paid people more and treated people more nicely everything would be better. That's what I mean by "narrative". It's a nice-sounding just-so story, but overlooks a whole lot of really important detail.
After a 25+ year period in which I've studied business/economics at tertiary level, read/examined/contemplated economic and social issues very deeply for that entire time, been a business operator, an employee, a contractor and a volunteer in all kinds of different organisations at all levels and taken a deep interest in the issues for the most needy in society, I've come to understand there's a bit more to it than that.
Please don't assume that if someone is asking questions and making points that challenge the explanation you've settled on, it has to be because they care less than you do about those who are not well off.
How do small increases in compensation at the soul-crushing job help solve these people’s problems? If anything it sounds like it makes it even less economically viable to leave the dystopian environment they are in.
> If anything it sounds like it makes it even less economically viable to leave the dystopian environment they are in.
Economically viable for the large corporation but not for those on the bottom. Why does the maximization of shareholder value deserve to be the only consideration? Amazon skirts tax laws to save billions while taking advantage of selling within the United States. Why shouldn't we as a society say that those on the bottom deserve a slightly less bad life?
Those at the bottom deserve a better life by: 1) being able to afford all necessities (housing, healthcare, etc.) 2) not being subject to psychological torture at jobs they can't leave
Modest increases in compensation don't seem to address (1) effectively and do not address (2) at all which is my concern.
> The reference to AI in the article makes it sound dystopian, but isn't this potentially better, if it just means that computation is used to detect any issues rather than having humans watching their fellow workers?
> [..] what incentive does Amazon have for it to be anything other than this
What Amazon (and others doing similar stuff) does is create something of a Panopticon [0] to enforce proper behavior:
> Although it is physically impossible for the single guard to observe all the inmates' cells at once, the fact that the inmates cannot know when they are being watched means that they are motivated to act as though they are being watched at all times. Thus, the inmates are effectively compelled to regulate their own behaviour.
> In 1965 the conservative historian Shirley Robin [..] argued that Bentham's pet gadget, the panopticon prison, was a device of such monstrous efficiency that it left no room for humanity.
> Recent Libertarian thinkers began to regard Bentham's entire philosophy as having paved the way for totalitarian states.
In this regard, as with the Panopticon, it doesn't even matter if the camera's work or there's AI involved.
I would never work for someone that has to watch me on camera, unless of course being on camera was my job.
1. It's another example of Amazon blaming drivers for what Amazon themselves could control.
2. It's another example of Amazon doing something grossly invasive and of dubious effectiveness when simply tracking the hours individual drivers work and limiting them accordingly would get the job done.
2: Since drivers can work multiple jobs and do what they want with the time when they are not working for Amazon, I don't see how Amazon limiting the hours a driver works (which they likely already do) solves this problem?
In my book, automating boring and repetitive tasks is good even if it leads to some job losses. Turning humans into robots by optimizing for every bit of near-term efficiency is not. My 2c.
https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/17/reverse-centaur/#reverse-...
> Emmanuel Kant's "Formula of Humanity" told us that "treating people as means" was a violation of the supreme principal of morality – humans should be served automation, not harnessed to it.
That's the problem; nobody (rightfully) trusts Amazon to only have everyone's best interests at heart, or to not abuse this system. Because they have in the past, and they will in the future.
At some point of abusing workers, too many workers will quit and/or regulators will intervene.
From what I can see, other commenters agree that if this really is just a safety measure and doesn't transgress worker privacies in other ways, then it would be OK.
So how about the critiques focus on ensuring that this outcome is achieved? Unless everyone really thinks that no amount of safety is worth any risk of breaches of worker privacy?
To be clear, I'm not making arguments or seeking responses that hinge on Amazon being virtuous and trustworthy; I've been in/around business long enough to know that's futile and that incentives are ultimately what matter.
But I welcome responses that explain what incentive Amazon has to expand this system beyond improving safety for drivers and other road users.
Welcome to America, where the regulators are owned by the corporations and there's a never ending supply of hopelessly poor people desperate for jobs to replace anyone who quits.
Your perspective is hopelessly naive.
Your comment is unproductive as it's largely unfalsifiable ideological rhetoric (with the personal barb "hopelessly naive" thrown in to really poison the discussion).
Granted:
Corporate influence of government is a real issue;
Corporate exploitation and mistreatment of workers is a real issue;
But also:
Democracy and government oversight of companies still exists, and still has a meaningful influence on the way companies operate;
As does the fact that, whilst many people are struggling and desperate for work, there is not, in fact, a never-ending supply of workers who are both competent/capable of doing the work that Amazon needs, but also so poor and desperate for work that they will tolerate any level of maltreatment for an extended period of time. (If your whole argument hinges on that claim, which it seems to, you need to do some more work proving it, as it's a very big claim.)
It's way late where I am so I'm exiting the discussion for some sleep, thanks.
I know this happens in some contexts (eg environmental protections), but with regard to employee treatment in huge workforces, no, it really isn’t so simple, and you again provide no backing for the claim, just hand-waves.
And you haven’t demonstrated your bigger claim: that there is a literally unlimited supply of people who would, at once, make good Amazon workers, and be so desperate for work and without any other work options that they will tolerate any level of mistreatment.
Wage theft for years and what's the punishment? Pay it back. So best case the theft is never reported and the company wins. Worst case the company got a massive interest free loan. That's not punitive - that's carte blanche to keep doing it.
There are 10 million unemployed people in America. That number doesn't include those that have given up even looking for a job, and it doesn't include those who are underemployed well below their credentials. It doesn't count those who are currently earning minimum wage in poverty and who would gladly go through pain and awful treatment to make another buck or two an hour.
Larger companies like Amazon, Tesla, Uber, Lyft, Instacart, DoorDash etc - but Amazon in particular, being so large/prominent - are under constant scrutiny from media, politicians/courts, unions/employee groups, labor activists, social media and discussion forums like this one. Sometimes the reports of the most serious incidents (people dying on the job or having to urinate in bottles as a routine part of the job) turn out to be exaggerated or falsified, so it can be hard for an impartial observer to know what the situation really is. But there are enough forces at play to motivate companies to keep wages and conditions at a humane level. (For the record, I've known people who have worked in warehouses for online retailers - one being a close friend in the US but not working for Amazon, and another being a relative who worked for Amazon here in Australia. Both have said the work was hard and conditions could have been better, but they weren't like prison camps or gulags.)
Your final paragraph is narrative and speculation, and I accept it's based on real issues, but it doesn't prove the specific claim you're basing your argument on: that there is an infinite supply of people both competent enough to do a good job for Amazon, but so desperate for work that they'll accept any level of mistreatment.
And getting back to the main point of the discussion: this thread now has 168 comments, and nobody has convincingly suggested a way in which this system can be used for anything other than safety, apart from insisting that it's a way for drivers to be blamed for safety transgressions that should be the company's responsibility, but without suggesting a way that the company could take full responsibility for safety without using some kind of system like this one.
It just looks like a case of anything Amazon (or any other large/powerful organisation or person) does, some people will insist that the worst conceivable motive for that thing simply must be the real one.
To be replaced by others, whose options are to remain unemployed, hungry, and homeless, or to submit to low wages and shitty conditions.
> and/or regulators will intervene.
Two responses to this:
1. Will they? Why are they not intervening now?
2. A fine is a price. If they save two million dollars, at the cost of a $200,000 fine, they just profited to the tune of $1.8 million dollars.
You say it yourself;
> To be clear, I'm not making arguments or seeking responses that hinge on Amazon being virtuous and trustworthy; I've been in/around business long enough to know that's futile and that incentives are ultimately what matter.
Their incentives are always about making money. If abusing their employees makes them money, they are incentivized to abuse their employees, as they are doing now. Giving them additional tools and blindly trusting that they won't is, frankly, insane.
---
Where are people finding this weird mix of empathetic rationality, where a global corporation will find it in their best interest to treat employees well, despite repeatedly not doing so in the past? Do we apply this logic to repeated spouse-beaters? What's their incentive to beat their spouses?
It's true that bottom-rung Amazon workers are low-skilled and not in a very strong bargaining position. But they still need certain aptitudes, competencies and physical fitness levels to be able to carry out the work effectively, which means they will have options other than working for Amazon. Your claim is effectively that there is a limitless supply of people who are competent/able-bodied enough to do the job Amazon needs, but at the same time so desperate for any kind work that they will tolerate any level of mistreatment. This just doesn't hold water, and nobody in this thread has provided solid evidence for it. People just keep implying this is the case and assuming it to be self-evident.
> Two responses to this:
> 1. Will they? Why are they not intervening now?
Companies are subject to local, state and federal labor laws everywhere they operate, and governments, regulators and courts everywhere are perpetually looking at what needs to be done to bring about reasonable improvements in pay and conditions for workers. This article [1] describes changes in NY and California to bring about criminal prosecutions for wage theft. Criminal liability also applies in some places for workplace health and safety breaches. Could/should more be done? Sure. But your suggestion that companies like Amazon operate free of any regulatory oversight or consequence is false.
> 2. A fine is a price. If they save two million dollars, at the cost of a $200,000 fine, they just profited to the tune of $1.8 million dollars.
Can you cite an example of this with Amazon or a similarly large company? As far as I know this is false, when it comes to labor laws. Companies that continue to commit the same breaches face increasingly severe penalties, and in some cases the potential for criminal prosecution against the company operators.
> Their incentives are always about making money. If abusing their employees makes them money
You're trying to prove your point by looking at just one factor in isolation of all the others. Sure, companies exist to make money. But they need to think about legal issues, employee retention, brand/reputation/media coverage, company culture, management self-respect...
Your last sentence is just gross. It's fascinating when people need to resort to vile imagery to get their point across.
[1] https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/prosecutors...
> Can you cite an example of this with Amazon or a similarly large company? As far as I know this is false, when it comes to labor laws. Companies that continue to commit the same breaches face increasingly severe penalties, and in some cases the potential for criminal prosecution against the company operators.
I'm not sure how this breaks down exactly, but this asserts that there are at least 12 violations directly related to employment issues, and 68 safety violations - but I think that rolls in both workplace safety issues, and aviation issues:
https://violationtracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/amazoncom
Since the year 2000, they've apparently been fined 100 million dollars. Last year, they had an income of 22 BILLION dollars.
As an analogy, this means that if I were Mr. Amazon and stole $20 from one of my employees, my fine would be half a penny, except that fine includes every other illegal thing I'd gotten caught doing that year.
I don't have any numbers on criminal prosecution.
> Your last sentence is just gross. It's fascinating when people need to resort to vile imagery to get their point across.
Well, if it helps you feel better, it doesn't seem like anything I say helps get my point across.
> As an analogy, this means that if I were Mr. Amazon and stole $20 from one of my employees, my fine would be half a penny, except that fine includes every other illegal thing I'd gotten caught doing that year.
That's no analogy. You're implying that every last cent of revenue earned by Amazon amounts to theft. Sure, take that line of rhetoric if you want, but it's not a serious discussion of the issues and doesn't do anything to help address any real problems for workers.
Taking the most recent case - the $61.7M fine handed down in Feb this year - that fine amounted to 100% of the money they were found to have withheld from drivers.
Which means the claim that Amazon can deliberately and continuously underpay and mistreat workers, write off any fines and "costs of doing business" and face no significant consequences is false. $61M is a lot of money for anyone, even Amazon, they gained nothing from it, and indeed would have lost a whole lot more money defending the case, as well as in their reputation among potential workers.
If I haven't made this clear already, I'm not for one second claiming that Amazon is free of any wrongdoing, that pay and conditions for Amazon workers are always adequate, or that the economic system and regulatory oversight mechanisms always function well. I'm just pushing back on the claims that every last thing that Amazon ever does amounts to gravely sinister assault on perpetually defenceless victims, and that they never face consequences for wrongdoing. Things can still be bad without having to be quite that bad.
Recording your drivers 24/7 with a camera/mic is a step too far. If you want to have a "black box recorder" that's simply recording the telemetry of the vehicle itself, that's about as far as I'm willing to accept.
I think this is it. Australians are okay with just about any kind of big-brother surveillance or nanny-stateism as long as it's sold to them with a good story.
Australian roads are on par with other wealthy Western nations (US is an outlier), and Oz has an advantage of not having snow/ice and related hazards. The cops there are largely harassing people and raising money, it's not driven by an aim to reduce harm or protect drivers.
Yeah, this is false. Australians like living in a place that has safe roads, and support governments that keep things that way. It makes for well-functioning health system and a harmonious society.
I agree that Australia can be too nanny-statist; that's a separate matter. But it's not true that authorities don't care about reducing harm to people. Governments/authority figures who aren't serious and sincere about this topic don't stay in office very long.
If the purpose was harm reduction, an appropriate thing would be to concentrate on what really is a safe speed on individual roads, updating speed limits (they are currently set by very stupid rules and are often very inappropriate), and concentrating on those with actually excessive speed (which they do to some extent).
However, the majority of the effort these governments have put into it is to get really picky about anybody driving 3km/h over the limit and giving them insane fines for it. This causes people to just stare at the speedo instead of concentrating on defensive driving or paying attention to their surroundings.
- The campaign to enforce speed limits has been going on for decades; there's no "recently" about it.
- They do update speed limits to what is deemed safe on different roads, and there is constant research and discussion about what speed levels are appropriate, along with published correlations of speed limits with fatality figures, and consideration of practices in other countries.
- I live in s state that supposedly penalises you if you exceed the limit by more than about 3kph. I've been fined a couple of times in recent years, since I moved out of the city into the suburbs. I wasn't fined for 3kph breach, more like 6. The fine is now AUD $207 for exceeding the speed limit by up to 10kph. It was annoying, sure, but I've learned to be more careful about keeping to the limit, and haven't had a fine for over 2 years. I don't stare at the speedo. Nobody does. In city roads it's usually hard to exceed the limit anyway due to traffic, and on open roads I use cruise control. It's no big deal.
Meanwhile, the fatality figures continue to decrease year on year.
The notion that traffic fines are a scam to raise government revenue doesn't hold much water. Traffic fines make up less than 1.5% of state revenue in Victoria, and it is spent on road upgrades to improve safety and traffic conditions.
Most people are amazed I just relax around speed cameras. "Careful! You need to slow down. Oh, you are already at or below the speed limit."
I don't get why this isn't a routine for all drivers.
(Counter-example) Approximately 70% of Germany's motorways have no speed limit, yet despite that and being very busy, they are still considered the safest roads in Germany.
Full disclosure: I don't support the lack of speed limit, from personal experience when driving in Germany it appears to encourage tailgating and/or generally aggressive driving.
The riskier roads are single carriageway highways where vehicles with drowsy/impaired drivers can lose control and veer off the road into a tree or onto the other side of the road into an oncoming car.
Notably, the most dangerous road in Victoria is the Western Highway, which is a single-carriageway road that joins two major cities that are about 9 hours drive apart, and is Australia’s second-busiest road for freight.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...
Australia is precisely at the middle. Right now it is 13th.
So, I would like your opinion on driving in UK which has Isle of Man in it. It has much lower accidents rate per km driven. And also three times as much population.
As for AI-reeve theme, AI is inherently biased - due to training sets used. Imagine being one with face expression that is a little bit closer to what AI considers not normal (slower blinking, less eye movement, etc - something like that). You certainly will be held to a higher standard than others just because chances are you will be considered not normal by AI.
"I don't like your face, so I'll punish you for that" but from a robot.
Russia have (and had from beginning of century if not earlier) a system that reads vital signs of train locomotive operators. It is consisted of special bracelet, pedal and series of signals. Bracelet reads heart rate and skin conductance and determines whether person has good health and is attentive. Pedal is used to tell the system that operator is attentive - it should be pressed after a signal is issued. If operator does not respond to series of signals, emergency braking is activated.
That system works very well, we have rather low train accidents rate.
But recently I heard about its replacement and it is all about face recognition, all for the sake of making it cheaper. And I guess it is as not good as the system employed by Amazon.
One thing is that it's improved since the 2016 year that the Wikipedia data is from. In 2018 Australia's figure was 4.3, 7th on the list (though the UK isn't included in that report - recent UK figures seem hard to find). Australia's figure was better than the OECD average and much of Europe.
But a reason for Australia's fatalities per billion VKT figure being so much higher than the UK would be its vastness, and the distances some people need travel in remote ares.
According to this report [1] (see fig 1.1 - page 3), Australia's fatality rate increases dramatically the more remote you go. Presumably it's a combination of fatigue, the quality of roads and low police presence that leads to more dangerous conditions in remote areas.
As for the rest of your comment, there's a huge assumption in all this that Amazon's primary goal here is punishing drivers, rather than just detecting if they're tired and activating a warning signal for their own safety. And surely as the training data includes all the drivers in their network it will become more accurate.
[1] https://www.bitre.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/inter...
I don't understand the outrage either.
When you allow the surveillance state of the government to continue to expand you can expect the nanny behaviors of corporations to expand too.
We are lucky that we work in a creative field, most occupancies require just good, repetitive work.
There should be a legal framework to destroy archive recordings, liability for misusing them, because there is a room for real abuse. Not in the work control.
To me, the idea of an algorithm which detects when a driver is at increased risk (e.g. drowsy, or not wearing a seatbelt, or maybe using a phone inappropriately) seems like a fundamentally good move. And makes basic sense in any vehicle still piloted by a human.
The issue is that (of course) people being watched by a camera opens the potential of misuse, and so (as ever) people jump to worse-case scenarios and start using emotionally-loaded words like ‘dystopian’.
Of course, we don’t know for sure if it will be misused, and/or dystopian, until it’s actually implemented and we have observed results... but people do like to get upset and sensationalise just about anything that’s a new idea, these days.
I have a counter proposal. How about instead of trying to micromanage employees, companies raise the hiring bar?
If you don't want people working for you who break the rules, pay them well, and create a culture of inclusion and safety. I hear exactly the same complaints from friends involved in manufacturing where employees are constantly doing drugs on shift, showing up late, and abusing the system. Well what the heck did you expect? You pay them $10-15 per hour and treat them like they are replaceable robots rather than people. Of course they are going to screw you over.
My original comment was addressing the sensationalism applied to an idea... because it was associated with Amazon and/or AI and/or cameras, etc. I wasn't for a moment intending to support Amazon's overall approach to its employees.
That said, it doesn't have to either/or: I still think that such algorithms (if they work sufficiently well) make sense to be used in any vehicle (commercial or private, Amazon or otherwise) piloted by a human, given obvious human weaknesses & variability, and the damage that badly-driven vehicles can do.
Its how driving intoxicated became a felony.
Well, I'm not sure that that's got anything to do with this particular issue, but since you asked... I think payment of road tax according to road usage is eminently sensible, and much fairer than a flat tax applied to people irrespective of whether they drive 5k or 50k miles per year. So yes, I'd be fine with GPS monitoring of my road usage, if the end was sensible and it wasn't abused by the governmental apparatus that would (probably) implement it.
> How about setting aside whether this is useful and consider that maybe it's blatantly anti-labor?
Is it, fundamentally? Is it any worse than making people clock in or out of a workplace, or setting performance goals? I don't know - I'd be interested to hear your argument.
> They can already monitor who's wearing a seatbelt or not with vehicle telemetry.
Sure... but not tiredness, or inattention, or other risky behaviours like eating or texting at the wheel.
> Adding this on top of their existing monitoring apparatus is sociopathic.
What are you referring to, here?
That's what fuel taxes were for
Jane is found to be falling asleep on the factory floor. Or Jane is found to be falling asleep while delivering packages.
In both cases the feed might be recorded, abused in terms of privacy expectations, sent to an AI algorithm... And in both cases she may get reprimanded.
Is this kind of supervision ok?
They're both illegal.
You can have cameras film employees, for example when they take things out of a safe. Or if there has been theft and you monitor the area where this took place. There has to be a purpose, you can't simply film people do their work as a blanket measure all day long, that's invasive, unethical with the ethics I was brought up with, and illegal in any country where the GDPR applies and perhaps also the European Convention on Human Rights since this might be based on article 8 (privacy) (fun fact: Russia signed the ECHR, though I rather doubt they'd care if they were actually sued in the ECHR). It's similar on public roads: you can't simply film anyone who dares to walk over a sidewalk or drive over a road near you. But you can if there have recently been cars set on fire and there is a direct reason to film your car that is parked on the street. There just has to be a reason that trumps the right to go about your own damn business without constantly being watched.
Amazon honestly might have a case if it truly improves safety by a lot, or if they employ this for particular drivers in some higher risk class perhaps. But it's also invasive, so they have to have a good reason and apply the least-invasive measure that achieves the same effect.
The driver with face all the penalties if a accident occurs. The camera footage will only show what the drivers are doing and not what their dispatchers are doing.
I’ve seen this in other brands and cars as well.
It looks like these systems use a variety of factors, steering patterns, frequency of vehicle lane assist being activated, cameras evaluating driver, biometrics (heart rate, body temperature etc.), and face monitoring/eye tracking (to see if the driver is focused on the road).
We own a Volvo and have received surveys asking about our comfort level with these features, so I’m assuming this will be commonplace soon.
This is a monitoring system that helps drivers drive safer. Why are you assuming that it's anything else?
You're assuming "judgement" in a way that isn't related to driver safety that is not supported by anything in the article or the features themselves.
But the thing I wonder is, in 50, or 70 years from now, when someone's car is deactivated because they said the wrong thing online, or or an API was deactivated somewhere, I wonder who future generations will hold responsible. Because it seems like the smart people in the room are completely aware of the systems of oppression they are creating, but are doing nothing to stop it.
Truck drivers have historically been independent, in both corporate structure and mindedness, so I can see this being particularly off putting.
People would describe it to their less tech savvy friends to explain the meaning of a the power of 2.
48 is 84 transposed.
It’s closer to the present and likely all of it would be possible with today’s technology.
It will come... unless there is some major push back which is why I applaud this truck driver's actions....
One of the most memorable scenes for me from the series Chernobyl was when the nuclear scientist being tailed by agents complained about it to the first deputy chairman of the KGB. The chairman then pointed to two people who were trailing him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8oDEwvec1c
I'm not sure that going full-circle with surveillance is the right answer.
There are currently legal barriers to doing this. For example, recording audio without consent is criminal in Washington state and the basis is well argued.
There are many serious issues to such a monitoring system and shifts that would be necessary in society but some potentially amazing benefits. Imagine the end of "he said, she said". The reduction of incentives for running scams. The reduction in security related spending.
A mere beginning to the end of flagrant double standards and the plebeian concession to live under them would be a dandy start. Since we're unwaveringly barreling toward the panopticon anyway, why not do so properly and see along the way who the true believers are, those willing to make genuine examples of themselves. The world should know Jeff's shower thoughts - they'll probably be foisted on it soon enough and skull bracketed AI cameras with thought-monitoring ultrasound would do well to keep everyone informed in a timely fashion. Until we wangle that, we have smartlocks, which could integrate well into a sort of prebreakfast polygraph which scans our general intent before unleashing us into the outside world where we might stretch the truth, make mischief or think in an unutilitarianly beneficial way. A morning multiple choice questionnaire could substitute during outages or glitches. We'd carry the completed form as we do driver licences. Real ID, Real Intent, auditable by any citizen on demand.
Perhaps some guidance about where I fail to perceive or empathize. An analysis of where I have a lot of opportunity to learn. A personalized tutorial on overcoming my particular failings in negotiating, relating, or investing would be helpful.
There are definitely ways we could apply these things to make ourselves miserable. That is unquestionable. A social presence based on who I and those I know are rather than who we spend our time and attention to present ourselves as many do on social media today?
It reminds me of the wealth thing... I'd rather be rich than look rich. Many keep themselves from being wealthy chasing the latter. I'd rather be someone who people, particularly myself, like than appear to be someone people like. I'd rather be known than be seen.
I'm not sure of wealth or admiration, but one can be certain that s/he'll be both seen and "known" in this epoch, mostly by the unknown and unseen.
These monitoring devices are installed to limit company liability, limit company losses, and limit driver 'free-time' which the company pays for.
Using the word safety, is legitimizing Amazon's spin on this technology.
Please do not spread that garbage. These devices are installed solely to increase company profits.
ref: https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1375502593863073792?s=20
A solution would be to somehow implement bigger cabs with the ability to quickly "go" when you need. Another solution would be to give drivers a break when they need and ease up the pressure.
https://reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/mfrbty/hi_im_vic_a_former...
Notable q & a:
> Have you gotten in trouble via the camera?
> I haven't personally, because I didn't really drive with them for long enough. However, some other drivers did and I was there while it happened. They are shown their camera feed (in front of other drivers), called out, yelled at, and told to fix whatever issues the camera's AI recognizes under threat of losing their jobs.
https://www.businessinsider.com/author/annabelle-williams?op...
This review I linked here says:
Individual characteristics were mainly associated with alcohol consumption while poor working conditions were mostly associated with amphetamine intake
So, I don't think that narrative necessarily lines up with available evidence.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-drug-truckdrivers/drug-us...
Which uses this as a source: https://oem.bmj.com/content/71/1/71.short?g=w_oem_ahead_tab
But neither Amazon nor any other freight/delivery company can control its drivers' entire lives. No matter how much it pays, it can't stop some workers working multiple jobs - due to having severe debts or other personal motivations to work more than they should.
I could see someone being tired if they were covering extra shifts, though, which may be a problem in some DSPs that have more routes than drivers. This happens when too many people call off and/or the DSP doesn't reserve enough drivers in the schedule that day to cover call-offs. On a long enough timeline that will definitely lead to exhaustion in drivers.
That said, that problem isn't solved by AI. That problem is solved by placing realistic weekly limits on how much drivers can work and penalizing DSPs that fail to budget enough drivers for call-offs and/or who fail to terminate drivers that habitually fail to show. This porkoscope is unnecessary.
do not stem from good aspects of human potential and nature,
whether they themselves realise it or not,
then you lack insight.
-
I've stopped ordering from Amazon.
Even if it costs a bit more,
it feels so good.
It's the right thing to do.
I refuse to work for them,
and so should you.
Shame on the weak, greedy, and fearful that do.
-
Government regulation seems to be the only way
to prevent a perverse, grotesque future
and present.
-
But standing in the way -
Cursed human delusion,
confusion,
greed
and fear.
Cursed ideology.
-
It acts in all of us.
Damned be this condition.
May we all see the light.
Amazon has a detection system to figure out if you are getting tired. Sounds great to me. If you’re driving a huge rig or even a larger van, you falling asleep at the wheel means risk to your self and others on the road.
Not everything is bad and evil. This almost feels like an anti Amazon propaganda campaign to me. Why? Amazon isn’t the only one in the delivery business. Do their competitors have the technological capability to put this kind of feature in production? Probably not.
CCTVs have been around for decades. If surveillance was an issue, it would have come up many decades ago.
The actual driving of the delivery van is but a part of the delivery person's job functions.
I find the prospect of a world with more Bezos's and more Amazons and their dehumanising world-view genuinely frightening.
I personally think it’s horrible. I think humans must maintain a somewhat loose inefficient environment and process to remain sane. But for those who don’t share my views, introducing such systems is an easy sell.
I remember the first time I came across it, I saw a project that was going to install detailed monitoring on call centre workers PCs.
In the business case for the software they actually put a financial benefit of this system as something like reduced employee absence due to them being better managed!
There didn't seem to be any acknowledgement that the employees might find the implicit lack of trust involved in installing this kind of software a problem.
the current drivers are just a temp solution to this end goal.
This is literally true, managers refer to workers as "resources". A resource is something that you use up and then discard. At least they are in their own way being honest about it.
I refer to managers as belonging to one or a mix of the "slave trader", "parasitic" or "demonic" classes. In my 10+ years in this profession, I am yet to come across a "manager" who doesn't fall under this categorization.
We have major class issues.
I mean the failure of empathy and respect.
Think about the experience of having a camera pointing at you all the time that you work, potentially recording and/or allowing unknown people to observe you, with the complete loss of privacy that implies. And the loss of control that comes with the knowledge that the system can admonish you at any moment, possibly without any human input, for the smallest perceived infraction.
Combine that with the employment insecurity that comes with this kind of job and you get the potential for an extremely stressful and abusive working environment.
Would you really tolerate this level of surveillance? Pre-pandemic I worked in an office too and this is in no way equivalent to being in a workspace with a few colleagues. Neither is it comparable to gps vehicle tracking or a cab radio/phone. This is several levels past that.
2. Windows and cameras are very different things, one can record, the other can't. One is two-way, the other is not.
> The cameras are always on and scan drivers' body language and the speed of the vehicle, detect if a driver is wearing a seatbelt, and even measure drowsiness.
> The system then uses "automated verbal alerts" to tell drivers if a violation has been detected."
> [...]
> Amazon told Insider in February driver footage was not automatically available to Amazon and that the "live feed" was triggered only after the detection of a safety or policy violation. Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this story.
Wow this sounds like a dystopian science fiction movie.
It's scary to notice that Amazon PR team gets away with just saying "we promise it's not automatically available, and that we don't abuse it by surveilling 24/7". All this just reminds me of the creation and abuse of Uber's god mode, Snowden's revelations of NSA's secret dragnet surveillance, etc.
Things like this are only appropriate to use when the code for the system is 100% open source. It's anti-democratic when a system of rules that can instantly upload a live feed, which is "triggered after the detection of a safety or policy violation", is not visible to a participant in the system. It's tyrannical and terrifying. Systems like this just end up gaslighting workers and invasively monitoring them. It uploads their private information (it monitors their 'body language' - whatever that means) to a black-box vault, to be used for further exploitation by capital (and fed into the capitalist, racist and sexist Silicon Valley AI monster).
These actually sound like good things, but they’re also implementable without a camera
This approach works really well, because you can just accuse people who are against your proposals as being 'against driver safety'.
It's similar to every other move in increasing surveillance in that you can come up with a 'PR-friendly' reason for the surveillance that people find tough to argue against to placate the masses. "Oh, you are wondering why we are spying on everyone... uhh... it's to protect the children! It's to protect the children! And terrorists! We need to stop the terorrists! And the people who are against these proposals? Well they must be people who are pedophile-enablers and terrorist sympathisers!"
Note that this is readily solvable by having DSP and Amazon Logistics drivers do what Amazon Flex drivers already do: scan every single package individually. If a package comes up missing then flag an Amazon rep to inspect the bag its supposed to be in, verify its missing, snap a quick pic of the tracking#, and then they can take it off your route while they try to find it (and ultimately wind up marking it missing later). That, of course, would mean drivers take more time loading... so of course they'll never do that. They'll just install cameras.
Systems like this are for what you can't use existing vehicle sensors to do - detect if the driver is eating, drinking, using a cell phone (believe it or not some mega-carriers even have no-hands-free policies), reaching to adjust controls or grab something, talking to a passenger(s), doing drugs or drinking, the list goes on. They're meant to put as much liability and proof-of-fault as possible (or not) on the driver, and the whole driver-facing camera thing in general can drive down carrier insurance rates. "Oh the driver was reaching for his coffee and couldn't brake in time while someone cut them off to make their exit?" can sound great to some people to have on video, but "Driver was fired for eating a Big Mac while driving" or even "driver was caught masturbating in company truck" are very real things that have happened to people I personally know.
Luckily, there has been precedent set here in Canada that has banned driver-facing cameras for privacy-related reasons. Hopefully it stays that way, and the US follows soon. Whatever your views on how much safer it may make the roads, it's a gross invasion of privacy. I liken it to having your boss install a webcam in your office that's watching you 24/7, I'd bet a large majority of people would not put up with that.
I wonder if wearing a shirt with an image of a seatbelt would be enough to trick the camera or AI :)
Five bucks says their buzzword-compliant Sauron-o-scope is nothing more than a thin layer over some student's OpenCV project.
Just wait until they deploy something like this for the warehouse workers and they start getting flagged every time they scratch their nose.
I don't agree with such a system but if you use Amazon's van/car there is less opportunity to be against it.
* Independent couriers (via a delivery app similar to Uber).
* Small business owners that will have a fleet of c10 vans / drivers that contract for Amazon (via a specific Amazon programme to start up your own small van-delivery business for delivering Amazon parcels).
* Amazon directly-employed van drivers.
I think independent couriers are charged a cost per parcel delivered anyway, so it doesn't make sense to monitor those any more than you need to. This potentially could then apply to points 2 & 3 above depending on how far Amazon wants to go with it.
Eventually this is going to start costing them jobs and money... and even then they'll just find a way to shift blame. At this point I don't want to buy anything from them anymore. It's just not worth supporting this kind of institutional myopia.