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Walmart patents surveillance tool that can eavesdrop on workers

engadget.com

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Re: Walmart patents surveillance tool that can eavesdrop on workers

#41

Post by JustSomeNobody »

salawat wrote: post #39
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For any given website, if you can log in and chat with an employee, the conversation is logged. This is normal. If you call a corporation and chat with them, the conversation is recorded and used for quality purposes. This is normal. If you grab some groceries and ask to return one of the items you thought was on sale but wasn't, and this fact is noted by an audio recording system, suddenly this isn't normal. I don't…

Microphones and cameras don't just pick up "what you want". A key press is more than appropriate to gather the desired "this isn't on sale" metric. This device is also not intended for that use case. It's meant to generate metrics to "ensure employees are actually greeting." If you are SO FLUSH WITH CASH and in such a dearth of things to do with it that you are quite literally trying to optimize your greeter metrics,…

Well said.

What kills me is we hear about this w/ regards to lower waged workers. I make many times more than a Walmart worker and I don't have near the pressure on me to perform. I put it on myself, because I know I'm privileged to be doing something I enjoy, but I don't have to put up with anything near what they do. I think it's just another example of the haves hating on the have nots. They don't trust them to do their jobs well so they have to poke and pry at them. It's disgusting.

Re: Walmart patents surveillance tool that can eavesdrop on workers

#42

Post by maxxxxx »

grumio wrote: post #34
salawat wrote: post #16

...How much further are we going to let this sort of thing evolve? This is classic Industrialist overreach. Taft-Hartley be damned. Enough is enough. Corporate America needs a wake-up call, and I think the unions may need to brush off the dust and get back in the game. It's one thing to play with hypotheticals, but Corporations are starting to leverage capital advantaged positions in order to dictate what values the…

This far: http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm Good short story on surveillance & algorithms micromanaging low wage workers.

Great story. It also describes how the powerful keep the benefits of automation to themselves instead of letting everyone's life get better.

Re: Walmart patents surveillance tool that can eavesdrop on workers

#43

Post by seem_2211 »

salawat wrote: post #39
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For any given website, if you can log in and chat with an employee, the conversation is logged. This is normal. If you call a corporation and chat with them, the conversation is recorded and used for quality purposes. This is normal. If you grab some groceries and ask to return one of the items you thought was on sale but wasn't, and this fact is noted by an audio recording system, suddenly this isn't normal. I don't…

Microphones and cameras don't just pick up "what you want". A key press is more than appropriate to gather the desired "this isn't on sale" metric. This device is also not intended for that use case. It's meant to generate metrics to "ensure employees are actually greeting." If you are SO FLUSH WITH CASH and in such a dearth of things to do with it that you are quite literally trying to optimize your greeter metrics,…

Agreed. This is insane at every level.

Let's play this out - imagine they implement this. They spend millions (realistically tens/hundreds of millions) putting up sensor systems, spinning up data center capacity, hiring analysts and all the auxiliary work that goes along with this sort of program, all for what - to further dehumanize some poor middle age single mother who's making $9 an hour? And for what -to optimize some stupid metric?

Walmart would be far better off putting that money into the wages of their lowest paid employees, or investing that money into manager training and giving people on the ground help.

In my mind this is where inequality really starts to bite - this level of surveillance at work is disproportionately aimed towards those with the least power and agency.

Re: Walmart patents surveillance tool that can eavesdrop on workers

#44

Post by dfxm12 »

fallingfrog wrote: post #11

The realist in me knows that the people working at Wal Mart will accept this, because in the end they have no choice. But when you continue to squeeze people and control them more and more closely, eventually they wake up and realize who has the real power. Eventually the guillotine rolls out, and everything starts over.. Can we not do this this time?

because in the end they have no choice

With so few people unemployed, they have as much a choice now as they almost ever will.

Of course, thanks to Walmart's anti-union tactics, you won't see an organized workforce telling Walmart "No!"

Re: Walmart patents surveillance tool that can eavesdrop on workers

#45

Post by wwweston »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #26
salawat wrote: post #16

...How much further are we going to let this sort of thing evolve? This is classic Industrialist overreach. Taft-Hartley be damned. Enough is enough. Corporate America needs a wake-up call, and I think the unions may need to brush off the dust and get back in the game. It's one thing to play with hypotheticals, but Corporations are starting to leverage capital advantaged positions in order to dictate what values the…

For any given website, if you can log in and chat with an employee, the conversation is logged. This is normal. If you call a corporation and chat with them, the conversation is recorded and used for quality purposes. This is normal. If you grab some groceries and ask to return one of the items you thought was on sale but wasn't, and this fact is noted by an audio recording system, suddenly this isn't normal. I don't…

When you're having a conversation through an industrialized medium, you may or may not like the fact that your conversation is preserved, but it isn't a surprise if it is, because you have the sense of it taking place through just such a medium (even if it's something you've never articulated).

If you're talking to a checker (or anyone) face-to-face, there's an absence of any explicit industrial medium. You're going to have the sense that whatever industrialized processes are in place, the face-to-face conversation is out-of-band. Of course it's going to be a surprise when it's not, short of explicitly notifying people otherwise.

Re: Walmart patents surveillance tool that can eavesdrop on workers

#46

Post by madamelic »

I have always been super supportive of automation and I think it is a net-positive.

But today I had a weird experience. You know those automated ordering things at fast food places, I used one for the first time today. It was exciting and fun at first (don't judge me), but then I looked up and realized no one was at the register and no one was speaking. The workers were simply packing bags and pressing buttons. It was a cold transaction between two humans, the human workers could've been robots and accomplished the same thing.

It makes me a little worried and sad that automation will cause our lives to be completely sterile and cold. No human interaction, just pressing buttons and staring blankly at each other.

Re: Walmart patents surveillance tool that can eavesdrop on workers

#47

Post by sandworm101 »

madamelic wrote: post #46

I have always been super supportive of automation and I think it is a net-positive. But today I had a weird experience. You know those automated ordering things at fast food places, I used one for the first time today. It was exciting and fun at first (don't judge me), but then I looked up and realized no one was at the register and no one was speaking. The workers were simply packing bags and pressing buttons. It wa…

You skirt around the probably motivation behind those machines. It isn't about speeding the order process, it is about removing language from the equation. At some basic level, the person taking the order must have language in common with the person placing the order. Throw a machine into the mix and you no longer need that commonalty. The person behind the counter no longer needs to speak the same language as the customer. Every time they remove such requirements they make labor that little bit easier to replace.

I'll admit to occasionally hitting the drive through on my way to work. It is odd to say, but that brief interaction through the window is the one time I'll talk to a stranger all day. (I work behind guarded doors and security barriers.) I don't want that person replaced by a machine.

Re: Walmart patents surveillance tool that can eavesdrop on workers

#48

Post by jonnybgood »

Alupis wrote: post #23
394549 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how they'd make the required notifications to make this legal in one-party consent states. I don't see how this could fly at all in a two-party consent state. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_recording_laws#Unite...

From what I recall, even in two-party states, simply informing the other party is implicit consent, even if they say they do not consent to being recorded. The only way to reject consent is to hang up the phone, ending the conversation. (one-party state means I know I'm recording the conversation, so it's legal - I'm not obligated to inform the other party). In stores, you'll often see a sign somewhere near the entra…

That’s just to deter people from stealing. In public spaces and semi-public spaces consent does not need to be given. A store is considered a semi-public space. There is no expectation of privacy in a store. Anyone can take pictures of you and record you if they want and you legally cannot do anything about it. You do not have to leave the store if you do not give consent unless you don’t want to be recorded. You’re still going to be recorded in the parking lot.

Re: Walmart patents surveillance tool that can eavesdrop on workers

#50

Post by ryandrake »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #41
salawat wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microphones and cameras don't just pick up "what you want". A key press is more than appropriate to gather the desired "this isn't on sale" metric. This device is also not intended for that use case. It's meant to generate metrics to "ensure employees are actually greeting." If you are SO FLUSH WITH CASH and in such a dearth of things to do with it that you are quite literally trying to optimize your greeter metrics,…

Well said. What kills me is we hear about this w/ regards to lower waged workers. I make many times more than a Walmart worker and I don't have near the pressure on me to perform. I put it on myself, because I know I'm privileged to be doing something I enjoy, but I don't have to put up with anything near what they do. I think it's just another example of the haves hating on the have nots. They don't trust them to do…

Don’t fool yourself. If an analyst could find a way to squeeze additional value out of you in excess of the cost of squeezing, they would. The profit macro-optimization is done already, in most industries. Workers are all in for a constant series of micro-optimizations, forever.
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