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Comment by e-clinton | Hacker News Reader

Many blue collar workers are recorded all day long. In fact, it’d be tough finding a brick-and-mortar store that doesn’t have recording devices all over. Why is this news? Because it’s in a truck? Because it’s using AI?

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Having a recording to examine when investigating an incident is different than an AI analyzes all video feeds in real time. The latter is more like each camera having a security team watching it 24/7. That may be common in some high risk environments (e.g. gambling or other large cash situations) but it’s certainly not the norm in vanilla retail.

Truck drivers have historically been independent, in both corporate structure and mindedness, so I can see this being particularly off putting.

Even the screens in 1984 couldn't be monitored all the time. Somehow reality keeps becoming worse than fiction.

1984 is already one of the most terrifying books I've read, I can't imagine what it would have been if Orwell had foreseen the emergence of AI/ML technologies.

We need a follow up book, 2084. Maybe the vid screens are permanently strapped to your face and actively monitor you and act as an intermediary between you and your environment in order to prevent any anti party information from getting in.

2048 would be a better title.

...not if you're trying to get people to think of 1984.

I disagree. 2048 has more buzz value.

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.

The fact that all of these require explanations is evidence against an obvious/immediate association in the minds of likely readers.

Just call it 1984 and set it in modern times. It's 1984. It was always 1984. You okay? Don't let the screens see you talking about 2021...oh no. Run.

Truck drivers have been dealing with electronic log books for years, anyone in the industry is used to it by now. Article is paywalled for me, but if this driver has a CDL and expects to be able to put it to use elsewhere without monitoring then they are in for some bad news.

It's not the norm in driving either, but expect both to be on the upswing. AI to analyze retail feeds has been productized by a number of companies over the last few years. Right now they mainly do customer data collection, but monitoring employees is trivial.

it's been productized for employee theft as well when tied into register systems. Most checkouts probably have that (or many do). Register doesn't balance, find clip of employee taking the $20, train model a bit better for next time. Find some scan fraud - train model off those clips etc.

> but it’s certainly not the norm in vanilla retail.

It will come... unless there is some major push back which is why I applaud this truck driver's actions....

Did you know that NCR, a company that makes POS systems you frequently see in stores, owns a company called StopLift that does exactly that? If you’ve been to a store where they have one of those front-facing cameras on the self checkout, they’re probably using StopLift or something similar throughout the store, and according to their website it also works using overhead cameras on human cashiers.

Because it's Amazon it feeds the "Amazon mistreats its workers" narrative.

Which is not necessarily untrue.

Is this narrative false?

There shouldn't be any workplace surveillance.

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