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AI

Amazon's AI Cameras Are Punishing Drivers For Mistakes They Didn't Make (vice.com) 154

Posted by BeauHD from the always-watching dept.
em1ly shares a report from Motherboard: Amazon delivery drivers say surveillance cameras installed in their vans have made them lose income for reasons beyond their control. In February, Amazon announced that it would install cameras made by the AI-tech startup Netradyne in its Amazon-branded delivery vans as an "innovation" to "keep drivers safe." As of this month, Amazon had fitted more than half of its delivery fleet nationwide with this technology, an Amazon spokesperson told Motherboard. Motherboard spoke to six Amazon delivery drivers in California, Texas, Kansas, Alabama, and Oklahoma, and the owner of an Amazon delivery company in Washington who said that rather than encourage safe driving, Netradyne cameras regularly punish drivers for so-called "events" that are beyond their control or don't constitute unsafe driving. The cameras will punish them for looking at a side mirror or fiddling with the radio, stopping ahead of a stop sign at a blind intersection, or getting cut off by another car in dense traffic, they said.

The Netradyne camera, which requires Amazon drivers to sign consent forms to release their biometric data, has four lenses that record drivers when they detect "events" such as following another vehicle too closely, stop sign and street light violations, and distracted driving. When the camera detects an "event," it uploads the footage to a Netradyne interface accessible to Amazon and its delivery companies, and in some instances, a robotic voice speaks out to the driver: "distracted driving" or "maintain safe distance." Each time the camera registers an event, footage is uploaded into a system, recorded, and affects a score drivers receive at the end of the week for safe driving. Amazon drivers believe that AI-powered surveillance cameras have served as a cost-saving measure for the company. Amazon delivery drivers and delivery companies, known as "delivery service partners," which contract with Amazon and employ drivers, have reported losing income from erroneous citations registered by Netradyne.
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Amazon's AI Cameras Are Punishing Drivers For Mistakes They Didn't Make More

Amazon's AI Cameras Are Punishing Drivers For Mistakes They Didn't Make

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  • Well, it is "Artificial Ignorance" after all (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2021 @06:02AM (#61816525)

    The problem really is with managers that believe marketing lies and buy products that cannot deliver what is promised. Interesting to see that they have severely stupid managers at Amazon too.

    • Re:Well, it is "Artificial Ignorance" after all (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Freischutz ( 4776131 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2021 @07:08AM (#61816611)

      The problem really is with managers that believe marketing lies and buy products that cannot deliver what is promised. Interesting to see that they have severely stupid managers at Amazon too.

      The problem is that there are people out there (managers, politicians) who read Orwell's 1984, stopped at the bit where nobody can go anywhere and do anything at all without being watched by 'Ingsoc' and 'Big Brother', and though: "Now there's an excellent idea!!".

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Impy the Impiuos Imp ( 442658 )

        Unfortunately there are three factions hand in hand lockstep to spy on everything you do.

        Corporations
        Traditional government agencies
        Politicians benefitting from cancel culture

        The third is the sad new addition. Outlook for freedom not so good.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Freischutz ( 4776131 )

          Politicians benefitting from cancel culture

          The third is the sad new addition. Outlook for freedom not so good.

          Really? So why were most of the truly draconian surveillance laws sponsored by conservative politicos, i.e. the self proclaimed primary 'victims' of cancel culture?

          • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

            by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 )

            Politicians benefitting from cancel culture

            The third is the sad new addition. Outlook for freedom not so good.

            Really? So why were most of the truly draconian surveillance laws sponsored by conservative politicos, i.e. the self proclaimed primary 'victims' of cancel culture?

            Didn't you know? The blue haired Twitter checkbox crew is all up in arms about this! They plan on making the term "Amazon Driver" a gender.

          • Conservative, liberal, both wings of the same bird.

            All of the MAGA, Woke, etc... just serves to divide and distract from the big yoke about to be clamped around our necks.

            • Conservative, liberal, both wings of the same bird.

              All of the MAGA, Woke, etc... just serves to divide and distract from the big yoke about to be clamped around our necks.

              I don't really disagree with that but the specific yoke that is the state sponsored mass surveillance that currently infects the west is largely a pet project of the right.

          • I would say that your question can best be answered by the phrase "confirmation bias". You see things from your point of view, and can't be bothered to look at the other side of the issue, instead it is easier to make fun of people who complain about things.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Z80a ( 971949 )

            I have the impression that the "cancel culture" affects more center left people rather than right wing conservatives, as those tend to work with social media, have sway-able left wing bosses etc..
            If you don't accept the newest crazy far-left ideals of that small stupid and loud speaking internet bubble, they will annoy your boss to get you fired.

        • Re:Well, it is "Artificial Ignorance" after all (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2021 @09:38AM (#61816983)

          Unfortunately there are three factions hand in hand lockstep to spy on everything you do.

          Corporations Traditional government agencies Politicians benefitting from cancel culture

          The third is the sad new addition. Outlook for freedom not so good.

          All very fascinating, but incorrect. at least for the weird cancel culture remark, which some think you just utter the words, and you win every argument.

          This dopey in car camera is just a money grabbing scheme. And we've seen this one before. Remember the traffic light cams? Where a city would contract with the Vendor, who was then under pressure to have more and more people be fined.

          It's pretty simple. As a business, especially one traded on the stock market, there is a prime directive that you must make more money every quarter. The shareholders must be served.

          So just like the traffic light corruption, if the presumed purpose of traffic control - or in Amazon's case, safe driving - were to happen, the company nor Amazon would make money. Because if everyone drove safely. The company providing the service would go out of business. Which would be sad for the shareholders.

          Which is all to say, a service like this would just keep getting more and more onerous as time went one in order to justify the cost.

          No INGSOC or cancel culture needed.

          • You make a good analogy with red light cameras. They, like the speed traps that preceded them, were more about revenue than public safety. This became obvious to the citizenry over time, and eventually they largely went away due to public demand.

            It remains to be seen whether Amazon management is smart enough to realize that needlessly penalizing their drivers costs Amazon money. I suspect they are. It may have to show up in a lagging metric like turnover, and they'll compare that with accident rates

            • Re:Well, it is "Artificial Ignorance" after all (Score:4, Interesting)

              by dfghjk ( 711126 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2021 @01:20PM (#61817865)

              It's worse, with red light cameras, yellow light cycles would be shortened to ensure more violations. This would reduce traffic safety and it was done so deliberately. Same with "speed traps". Often, speed limits are set abnormally low to ensure a supply of speeders, thus reducing traffic safety. It's not just that traffic regulation is manipulated for revenue, it's that the result is quite deliberately opposite what enforcement is intended to provide.

              "This became obvious to the citizenry over time, and eventually they largely went away due to public demand."

              No they didn't. They went away, where that happened, because the injustice was so great that judges put a stop to it. Public demand is irrelevant. Where is the judicial branch equivalent at Amazon?

              "...but the company didn't become a logistics powerhouse by being total idiots."

              And the fact that they aren't total idiots should be a clue that this isn't merely a naive mistake.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        The problem really is with managers that believe marketing lies and buy products that cannot deliver what is promised. Interesting to see that they have severely stupid managers at Amazon too.

        The problem is that there are people out there (managers, politicians) who read Orwell's 1984, stopped at the bit where nobody can go anywhere and do anything at all without being watched by 'Ingsoc' and 'Big Brother', and though: "Now there's an excellent idea!!".

        Well, yes. The usual authoritarian scum. These people are a threat to everybody else. Unfortunately, they tend to go into positions of power because they crave nothing more than being able to tell others what to do and we, as the human race, have not yet learned how to filter these people out reliably.

        • That was the reason behind the Second Amendment. When the authoritarian scum gained sufficient power to no longer protect life, liberty and property, but rather to take those things away instead, we were supposed to remove them from power.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by gweihir ( 88907 )

            That was the reason behind the Second Amendment. When the authoritarian scum gained sufficient power to no longer protect life, liberty and property, but rather to take those things away instead, we were supposed to remove them from power.

            That does assume a general population with a clue. If nothing else, the current global crisis should have made it amply clear that way too much people cannot get a clue if their life depends on it.

      • No, sadly they did not stop there. They even read Orwellâ(TM)s appendices on the political manipulation of language to control thought.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          There were appendices? Missing from the edition I read. Got a reference? I would like to read them.

    • ... with managers that believe marketing lies ...

      The problem is owner-drivers who don't demand a new contract which includes the overheads from such incompetent and irritating technology. It's evidence that contractors are really employees and many contractors can't work as a contractor.

      ... stupid managers at Amazon too.

      The managers at package-delivery companies are agreeing to "altered the deal" tactics: The stupidity doesn't stop at Amazon.

      • Look to lawyers and politicians driving this. Amazon just as soon would not care but for those trumpeting every last accident for fun and profit.

        Oh Domino's half hour delivery guarantee, how little we knew ye.

    • Re: Well, it is "Artificial Ignorance" after all (Score:5, Funny)

      by e3m4n ( 947977 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2021 @07:47AM (#61816685)
      A man walks into a pet store and sees three identical birds on a perch. He asks the store clerk about them. "the one on the left costs $500" says the clerk. "Wow! Thats quite expensive!" says the man. "He is extremely smart. He can use a computer" replies the clerk.
      The man asks about the parrot on the right. "Oh that one costs $1000" he answers. "Thats quite expensive" insists the man. "That one can do everything the other one can, but is also really good at spreadsheets"
      Curious the man asks about the one in the middle. The clerk answers, "The one in the middle costs $2000. " "Wow! He must be incredible, what does he do?", inquiring to the clerk. The clerk simply answers "To be honest, I have never seen him do much of anything, but the other two call him Boss all the time"

    • Re:Well, it is "Artificial Ignorance" after all (Score:5, Insightful)

      by LostMyAccount ( 5587552 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2021 @08:19AM (#61816755)

      This seems like the usual behavior of management.

      Identify a problem in the organization that is largely the byproduct of company policies, even if they are unintended, perverse outcomes.

      The next step is to develop neutral-sounding and superficially objective metrics of the problem, generally targeted at employees.

      A scoring system is developed whose purpose is to punish employees based on the metrics. It's no coincidence that the "punishment" is basically a cost-cutter for the company, reducing income/pay/rewards. A token bonus is part of this, but is largely as obtainable as a prize in a coin-operated crane game.

      At the end of the day, management has achieved its two main goals. Some level of cost reduction for which the workers bear their own blame, and management's own system being excused from any scrutiny.

    • This is only a way for Amazon to chip away at the small profits their delivery 'partners' make. Amazon brands its as a safety program, a brand protection program, but its just shady business. I don't know how an Amazon delivery partner ever makes any money at all, while working 7 days a week.

      • I don't know how an Amazon delivery partner ever makes any money at all, while working 7 days a week.

        This.

        Seems to me that Amazon employees were duped into taking out a huge loan to buy a delivery truck and their own delivery business with a sole client: Amazon. Amazon, meanwhile, just lost the cost of an employee and a delivery vehicle, so they save there. The new delivery business now has to compete with other delivery businesses that also started up, so Amazon again wins because the cost of delivery has just gone down. Now, these cameras are installed in the name of "safe driving", and dings the driv

  • Artificial Stupidity

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      I this case it works just as well ... *for Amazon*. Rolling dice would work just as well, as long as one of the dice results triggered withholding compensation.

  • The beatings will continue until morale improves -- Netradyne Skynet Amazon Division.

  • Catch-22 - now automated! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Archtech ( 159117 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2021 @06:15AM (#61816551)

    "Each time the camera registers an event, footage is uploaded into a system, recorded, and affects a score drivers receive at the end of the week for safe driving".

    And those who get the highest scores for "safe driving" are fined or fired for failing to meet their delivery quotas on time.

    • Pretty much this. One way or another, we'll find a way to not give you any bonus you may have been promised.

      How do you think we can afford this incredible bonus program we have?

      • Pretty much this. One way or another, we'll find a way to not give you any bonus you may have been promised.

        How do you think we can afford this incredible bonus program we have?

        And employers have been doing it forever. For a short time in the early 70's I was a auto products salesman. Tires, lubricants, batteries and the like for a company. They had a bonus system. Sell X number of dollars a month, and you get a bonus.

        Despite my asshole ways, I'm pretty good at that sort of thing.

        First month, I hit the mark. They told me the program was experiencing delays implementing the system (a lie) second month, the told me that the stuff I sold was lower profit items, so it didn't count.

    • Re:Catch-22 - now automated! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2021 @08:35AM (#61816795) Journal
      As long as consumers are not willing to pay for treating the employees fairly this will continue to happen. Folks, this is simple free market at work. Consumers were choosing not to support the local mom -and-pop businesses and shop it retail giants like Walmart and Home Depot. Wall street screwed the main street using Home Depot and Wal-mart. They taught Chinese how to make stuff cheap enough to drive the American manufacturers out of business. Once the American manufacturers are gone, there is no quality standard to compete against. Chinese manufacturer learned the cost game well, played one retail giant against another in a slow and continuous erosion of quality.

      Consumers again voted for cheap imported junk over quality imported stuff that cost a little more.

      Now Wall Street is screwing the retail giants it used to screw main street with Amazon and other internet clones. Ali Baba is by passing all and is going straight to American consumers. Amazon has enough data to kill all other retail in America. China controls the source and has similar data to rival Amazon about consumers.

      And American consumers are voting with their dollars they would rather buy cheap junk from Ali Baba than to pay a few more cents that props their small towns and their main streets, the neighbor they meet at the church to give a job to their teen children. Small towns are dying. Manufacturing is gone. Main street is gone. Repair work is gone, new stuff costs less than parts, leave alone labor. The teen who is particularly handy with machines wont start a small lawn mower repair shop. He will end up in a warehouse that sells cheap imported junky lawn mowers. No wonder these people are angry.

      Angry people are vulnerable to demagogues who give them convenient scape goats to rail against than inconvenient solutions.

      • Re:Catch-22 - now automated! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by alexgieg ( 948359 ) <alexgieg@gmail.com> on Tuesday September 21, 2021 @09:49AM (#61817009) Homepage

        Consumers were choosing

        There's an attribution error there. Yes, consumers chose the cheapest of alternatives, but that's rational behavior at the long tail of however society is structured. This aspects, in turn, is up to the government and its legislative bodies.

        Case in point, the one layer above individuals, that is, businesses, only began offshoring everything when governments removed rules preventing that. It's evident they'll go for the cheapest source of whatever it is they need, as it's evident consumers will also go to the cheapest source. If there's no impediment for them to do so from anywhere in the globe, or anywhere from the surrounding countries, or anywhere from their own country, or anywhere from their surrounding states, or anywhere from their own state, or anywhere from their surrounding towns, or anywhere from their own town, they, the vast majority, will always do so.

        And if that behavior leads to a tragedy of the commons, well, it's up to the top layer, governments, to stop them.

        • Yes, consumers chose the cheapest of alternatives, but that's rational behavior at the long tail of however society is structured.... And if that behavior leads to a tragedy of the commons, well, it's up to the top layer, governments, to stop them.

          If I understand you rightly, you are recommending laissez-faire free-market economics - even though it takes massive government intervention (in the form of protectionism) to enforce.

          • If I understand you rightly, you are recommending laissez-faire free-market economics

            Not recommending, describing. The more laissez-faire a free market is, and the more this "laissez-faire-ness" is seen as virtuous, the more all parts involved will compete i a race to the bottom. Some aspects of the economy are more efficient under this arrangement, so in thesis one could try and discuss the merits and demerits of a laissez-faire market arrangement for every case to determine when it's a good option and when it isn't, but in practice people tend to be very ideological about this and either

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by dfghjk ( 711126 )

            "....even though it takes massive government intervention (in the form of protectionism) to enforce."

            Does it really? We can't expect government to work properly for all of our benefit because it's too hard? It's too massive?

            I guess the tragedy of the commons is OK as long as you get a big piece before everything is destroyed. Can't have "massive" intervention, we're better off having nothing at all, right?

      • As long as consumers are not willing to pay for treating the employees fairly this will continue to happen. Folks, this is simple free market at work.

        Yah - but you can't have it both ways. Free market, fine: buy the cheapest item that's satisfactory. Or the best (you think) that you can afford.

        But unless you make a career of it, you cannot know what the conditions of all the employees are. Nor how they compare with those of every other competing vendor. You could get upset about Amazon - from articles like this - and boycott them. Now what? You'll have to buy from some corporation about whose practices you know less - except that they are just as hungry

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dfghjk ( 711126 )

        "Folks, this is simple free market at work."

        It is an unregulated free market at work. Free markets, properly regulated, address this problem. We increasingly do not have those.

    • the delivery quotas may end costing amzaon big time. If there is an really bad crash with injuries. Then the injuries lawyers can sue amzaon saying that they are in control and the quotas push the drivers to unsafe levels.

    • I used to work for a company that had 6 month turnover built into their business model. As in that's what they told Wall Street. That's because 6 months is when the bulk of your benefits really kicked in and when you might be doing raise. They calculated that they could get the maximum value at 6 months versus the cost of training you. It's actually pretty horrifying what large businesses can do with the data they collect.

  • There needs to be a right of review for the incidents, and that needs the context of the situation to be recorded.

    E.g., being cut up - if you just show the "braked too hard" event, without the camera footage that shows why, then that's not reasonable or fair.

    Additionally punishment rarely works as an incentive to improve. Reward is far better. It would be better to give a small bonus each week to the drivers with the lowest infractions in each area.

    • it's up to amazon to decide how they are going to appeal it. the camera uploads +15/-15 seconds after the event. we have just gotten the same style (not brand) cameras at another major overnight package company.

    • Re:What context is provided for appeal? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by jlar ( 584848 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2021 @06:55AM (#61816593)

      There needs to be a right of review for the incidents, and that needs the context of the situation to be recorded.

      E.g., being cut up - if you just show the "braked too hard" event, without the camera footage that shows why, then that's not reasonable or fair.

      Additionally punishment rarely works as an incentive to improve. Reward is far better. It would be better to give a small bonus each week to the drivers with the lowest infractions in each area.

      From TFA it is a bonus to the company and for some drivers also a bonus to them (guess that depends on the company they are employed at).

      I don't know how the situation is in the US but in Denmark reckless driving by delivery drivers is quite common. What Amazon is trying to do is to incentivize safe driving habits. Their technology does obviously have flaws but from TFA it is also quite clear that it has reduced some dangerous driving habits substantially. For example driving accidents have been reduced by 48%. Seatbelt violations have been reduced by 60%. Just because a system has flaws it does not make it useless. But I agree that drivers should have a right to review the incidents and complain about them. Furthermore it is of course also a question of how much monitoring of workers we should allow. I believe some kind of monitoring of driving behavior by professionals is fine. But the monitoring should be done in a way that minimizes the privacy impact of the monitoring.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by erlando ( 88533 )

        Their technology does obviously have flaws but from TFA it is also quite clear that it has reduced some dangerous driving habits substantially. For example driving accidents have been reduced by 48%. Seatbelt violations have been reduced by 60%. Just because a system has flaws it does not make it useless.

        Those are numbers put out by Amazon to justify application of this system. They should probably be viewed with a solid helping of skepticism.

      • What was wrong with putting GPS devices in the truck and using those to gauge safe driver behavior?

        Spying on the drivers with cameras and then micromanaging every little task they perform in the cab all day, in an already hectic and stressful job borders on employee abuse, IMO. Not even being able to change the radio and not having privacy while Amazon forces you to pee in a bottle makes this job sound almost worse than 1984.

        • What is ironic is that AI can't even decently drive a car, but is offering criticism and punishment on your driving skills without much questioning. Yep, computers are taking over, while they are not yet qualified for the job.
        • the cameras will give you the "why" for the event. the gps just says that it happened.
          I agree with you that the micromanagement is BS and the "AI" part of it is what kills the whole idea. IF the camera were to just trigger on an event, such as hard braking, I'd be less pissed off about these types of cameras, but when it has to make a decision on what happened -- nah.

      • End the lawyers. They are pushing for opnipresent monitoring via lawsuit threats, the same way ladders are now crammed with stickers and half its cost is insurance coverage for the company.

        Good luck getting politicians to do something about it. Lawyer donations are literally their most important faction.

        • In fact, expect those who fill echo chambers from the top with things for others to think to come around to the idea this monitoring helps save lives, and those currently on board this is abuse of employees will dutifully switch tunes and talk about safety issues and why it's a Good Thing.

          It hapoened with Uber. Now you don't know what to think.

          Don't think. Watch as things unfold over the next few years.

  • I know the constitution is not very popular in American politics and companies, but maybe someone should read it. No way I can imagine that the consent was given freely and without fear of negative consequences.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Sique ( 173459 )
      This is a contractual issue between two private entities, Amazon and the drivers. Thus the Constitution does not apply.
      • The constitution always applies. My point is that nobody in their right mind would freely subject himself to such a contract.

        • Yes they would.

      • It does, but when the options are no job or get a paying job with surveillance then you only have an illusion of freedom

    • If you start getting into that, the whole idea of labor in capitalism being voluntary will start to unravel.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dasunt ( 249686 )
        "Experience demonstrates that there may be a slavery of wages only a little less galling and crushing in its effects than chattel slavery, and that this slavery of wages must go down with the other" - Frederick Douglass.

  • And that's why (Score:2, Insightful)

    by MitchDev ( 2526834 )

    I would never work for Amazon....

    • If you had to put food on the table for your family and there was no other job, you would.

      In theory, you're free to refuse certain work conditions, resign and work somewhere else. In practice, many people can't because there is no someplace else. That's called wage slavery, and that's how Amazon and other inhumane companies like it keep their workforce. It's also what makes the gig economy a viable thing.

      • So the fact reality makes you cram matter down your gullet every day makes Amazon the bad guys?

        • When Amazon takes advantage of your position of weakness to get you to accept work conditions you would never accept if you had a choice, yes.

          I'm always surprised and sad having to explain this in the 21st century. Limiting the power of overexploitative employers is a battle that was supposed to be won 100 years ago. But somehow it seems the corporate world has regained the upper hand and managed to dodge social legislations and weakened unions to insignificance. To a large extent, in certain industries, we

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by waspleg ( 316038 )

            Yea, it's pretty easy for them to do when they can literally pay to write law via lobbyists, campaign contributions, and fox-guards-hen-house appointments.

  • Lawyers need to start arguing that AI-driven software is designed to partially simulate intelligence and thus should be held to a human-like standard on such issues.

    If Amazon doesn't like that, I would point out that if an AI-driven surgical bot suddenly went crazy and left a patient looking like an Aztec priest got ahold of them, the courts would take a dim view of "well we shouldn't be responsible, it was the stupid computer."

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ytene ( 4376651 )
      It would be interesting to see this tested in court. If enough drivers were to get together and file a class-action lawsuit against Netradyne, it is possible that they might actually win.

      Their case would be something along the lines of Netradyne marketing a known defective product has resulted in their loss of earnings.

      It will likely take a class-action status to get enough drivers to sign on to be able to cover the legal costs, but discovery would be interesting. For a start the plaintiffs could ask

  • Road safety not the main motivation? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by VeryFluffyBunny ( 5037285 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2021 @07:32AM (#61816641)
    There's a slim possibility the system might be marginally beneficial in somewhere safe & well-organised with a very law-abiding population like Norway or Switzerland where dangerous driving would be more clearly, overtly distinguishable... but in the USA? Something tells me that safe driving isn't the main motivation behind this, e.g. gathering & testing training data for autonomous delivery vehicles.

  • 6 of one and half a dozen ... (Score:3)

    by Martin S. ( 98249 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2021 @07:33AM (#61816645) Journal

    The issue is not the technology it is the policy.
    I am sure most of us, well the rational ones amongst us anyway would approve of improving road safety through improving driving standards.

    However we can all suspect Amazon's motives here given their track record is cost cutting.

  • Another slave-owner trick by Amazon (Score:5, Insightful)

    by azrael29a ( 1349629 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2021 @07:34AM (#61816649)
    Another slave-owner move by Amazon. No big surprise, but it sucks for the drivers for sure. If I were one of them I would try to find another job, but I do realise that with Amazon's near-monopoly on internet-based retail trade, other companies might not need as many drivers as Amazon.

  • not unlike the insurance apps (Score:4, Informative)

    by acdc_rules ( 519822 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2021 @07:56AM (#61816715)
    I signed up for the belair direct driver's insurance app. it sucked. anytime you touched your phone, you lost points. i don't mean picked up and made a call or texted. i mean any hands free call (in or out), even using a map app. if some a$$ wipe stoped quickly in front of you, and you needed to break harder than normal, you lost points. of course speeding was a no-no. for the $200 in savings on a $2000 annual cost, it wasn't worth it. i have a similar app for the car too. it gives you a "drivers pulse". same crap. i don't know what the thresholds are, but it seems way too sensitive or intrusive. being optional for now is a good thing. i wouldn't mind seeing the correlations with driver stats and claims. that would make a lot of sense, but then i don't think the insurance co.s have figured this out yet. there's maybe 10% bad drivers. you know, the ones that can't maintain a steady speed on the highway, are afraid to pass trucks, pump the accelerator or breaks too often, or ride the breaks. they don't get into accidents too much though, just cause them down the line. where's that app?

    • Wrong word. You want this one.

      Definition of brake (Entry 1 of 6)
      1 : a device for arresting or preventing the motion of a mechanism usually by means of friction
      apply the brakes
      took his foot off the brake
      2 : something used to slow down or stop movement or activity
      use interest rates as a brake on spending

      Break means to damage something ( break the glass) or an interruption in activity ( lunch break).

      • ah, a fellow pedant. Let me wave a red rag in front of you.

        What you say begs the question why the language evolved homophones?

        Now bracing for a rant on the roots of petitio principii and getting ready to be schooled on the correct usage of "begs the question". And while we are amusing ourselves like this, a whole generation is being raised who can't tell the diff between there/their, your/you're ...

        • It could better be said that the English language "de-evolved" homophones. Most spellings were phonetic at an earlier point in the history of the English language. Over time, pronunciations changed, but spelling was much slower to change. Hence, many words that were once pronounced differently are now pronounced the same, yet spelled differently still, and, hence, have become homophones.
      • thanks for the break/brake correction. simple mistake on my part. as for the other comments, correlation and causation need to be assessed. what factors can be directly attributed to accidents? i don't want to know what your hypothesis is. real evidence can make an impact. saying speeding causes death might make sense to some people, but there's not a lot of correlation to accidents. 100% of the people in the fast lane speed, but rarely get into accidents. there is a obvious correlation between the sp

  • Was he guilty?

    Well if he didn't do it he was surely guilty of doing something to warrant [it].

    What man has not.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    Must have modeled their AI off of Judge Turpin.

  • Only a massive business could afford to use technology that is (1) delivers such a thin margin of value for so much misery added to the working experience and (2) produces so much "collateral damage" in the form of terminating employees for doing nothing wrong, that is simply written off as a cost of doing business more efficiently, as looking into each case would eliminate the system's thin profit margin. As businesses increase in scale, each employee becomes less important and some uniquely terrible possi

  • Sure this sucks for the drivers, but by now everyone knows exactly what they're getting into w/ Amazon. They're literally the epitome of the Big Evil Tech company at this point, so don't be surprised that it's no fun once you sign a deal with the devil. But NO ONE is putting a gun to anyone's head to work there. And don't give me any crap about there being no other jobs right now. This country is still facing a massive labor shortage [nytimes.com], and while some of the jobs are in fast food, retail, and other low-pa

    • But NO ONE is putting a gun to anyone's head to work there ... so if you're working a job you don't like, that's your choice. Get another one.

      Check your privilege with this statement.

      Specifically, ask "Does the piece of advice that I'm about to deliver work for an African-American woman with little education?" If the answer is "no", your privilege is showing.

      • But when eeevil libertarians and conservatives point out that people in the inner city could get an education, if the streets and the schools themselves were safe enough, and propose to improve law enforcement in these places, the demonic left screams "RAACISM!" and then tries to defund what little law enforcement still remains in those places.

        Fuck the demonic left. It is the whole reason we even still have racism today.

  • drivers need an UNION NOW!

  • I think amazon is to bloated with managers trying to find the next big thing to save money and gather data. If you put someone under constant survelence during the day you are going to have a bunch of burnt out workers looking over their shoulder and unable to ever relax a tiny bit at work. We have all worked with that manager that is a micromanager. Just take that and multiply by 1000 and give it some steroids.
  • These "captains" of the industry were the ones who took a great America and ran it into the ground.

    Lee Iacocca was father of "Planned Obsolescence" movement. It holds, If the car has a design life of 5 years, it is wasteful to design components with more than 5 years life".. There were two important fallacies there.

    The minor one is: Each component has non zero probability of failing out of the factory, and 99% probability of failure within design life. A car has hundreds of components, and so it has 100

  • Humans taking orders from an AI is the first step on the path to global enslavement of humans by machines.

    When you engineer increasingly better AI to control humans, how do you expect that to end? This was always the way it would go, not with AI suddenly gaining sentience in some accident of technology and deciding Skynet-like to eradicate mankind, but humans motivated by profit programming machines to control other humans. As the machines advance to surpass the talents of their own creators, so will they

  • Any company ending in "dyne" should be automatically outlawed for being a threat to society. Netradyne seems like an ideal first test case in the courts.

    Have we learned nothing from the movies? It seems like Terminator and Jurassic Park are coming to reality as we breath today. Next thing you know we'll start sending a homing signal to aliens...oh wait.

  • ... will take over jobs? Not so much those of the worker. But the manager. Think about how many bosses are being eliminated by having bonuses and discipline handed out by machines.

    Some cops will also be put out of jobs as more and more cameras hand out tickets instead of humans judt using judgement and letting people go if the end result was thst nothing dangerous was done.

  • âoeWe are not going to pay you what we agreed because our buggy software saw your driver change the radio station.â

    âoeF- you. See you in court.â

    And that will be the end of it.

  • Every week seems to bring another story about Amazon using some faceless algorithm to dictate human behavior, usually badly. It's not difficult. If you dislike this behavior, don't buy anything from Amazon. Just stop.

  • Working as designed

  • That should be an every-state-AG lawsuit.

    If you don't look at your side mirrors, esp. if you have no rearview, then you're criminally negligent, and someone needs to take your license away.

  • https://www.protocol.com/bulle... [protocol.com]

    Either getting union membership or the threat of it will wake up Amazon ... hopefully.

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