Amazon driver quits over AI-powered safety cameras in delivery vehicles • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon driver quits over AI-powered safety cameras in delivery vehicles

#61

Post by bobmaxup » Sun, Mar 28, 2021, 12:10 PM UTC

tomhoward wrote: post #16

mathieubordere wrote: post #6

Do the drivers have to work extremely long shifts or do they have to work multiple jobs so that fatigue becomes an issue? In that case the camera system is probably not the right solution ...

Driver fatigue is an issue for freight companies of all sizes, everywhere, and use of amphetamines to stay awake has been a frequent practice among many drivers for a long time. This is a freight industry issue, not an Amazon issue.

> This is a freight industry issue, not an Amazon issue.

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.

Re: Amazon driver quits over AI-powered safety cameras in delivery vehicles

#62

Post by andyjohnson0 » Sun, Mar 28, 2021, 12:10 PM UTC

xadhominemx wrote: post #44

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #4

I do wonder what kind of company culture produces decisions like this. Multiple high-level people will have signed-off on this. They'll have sat in meetings reading their six page documents and nodding at eachother. I wonder if, at any point, anyone said no - this is excessive? Or that this is dehumanising? Or is it that when you get past a certain level at Amazon are you already so invested in their worldview that t…

What do you mean by “decisions like like this”? Driver monitoring had been around for a very long time and it saves lives. And I don’t know about you but my office has windows and all my colleagues can watch me work all day long.

> What do you mean by “decisions like like this”?

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.

Re: Amazon driver quits over AI-powered safety cameras in delivery vehicles

#63

Post by Lendal » Sun, Mar 28, 2021, 12:11 PM UTC

tomhoward wrote: post #29

Maybe it's just that I live in Australia, a country that has very strict road safety laws and practices, which are generally supported by the community, given that our road fatality figures are now very low (in 2019 we had just under 1200 road deaths in a nation of 25.3M people - a low rate by world standards, particularly given how much we drive here). But I just don't see the cause for outrage over this - as long a…

I don't think it's really about the AI at all. The article mentioned a live feed which the AI activates so that your can be berated by a real-live person. From personal experience, I feel like that's what the quitting is truly about. I have quit a job before over surveillance cameras but that was back in 1980's, long before AI. The work environment there was oppressive, and not just due to the surveillance cameras. The business failed a few years later. I wasn't surprised. Blame was placed on external factors, but anyone who attempted to worked there knew it was due to the oppressive management style, of which surveillance cameras was just a tool.

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.

Re: Amazon driver quits over AI-powered safety cameras in delivery vehicles

#64

Post by thepete2 » Sun, Mar 28, 2021, 12:12 PM UTC

xadhominemx wrote: post #44

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #4

I do wonder what kind of company culture produces decisions like this. Multiple high-level people will have signed-off on this. They'll have sat in meetings reading their six page documents and nodding at eachother. I wonder if, at any point, anyone said no - this is excessive? Or that this is dehumanising? Or is it that when you get past a certain level at Amazon are you already so invested in their worldview that t…

What do you mean by “decisions like like this”? Driver monitoring had been around for a very long time and it saves lives. And I don’t know about you but my office has windows and all my colleagues can watch me work all day long.

1. This isn't just driver monitoring if there can be a "live feed" (and besides I'm not inclined to believe Amazon only uses it for that), driver monitoring would not need an internet connection if there was any value placed on workplace privacy.

2. Windows and cameras are very different things, one can record, the other can't. One is two-way, the other is not.

Re: Amazon driver quits over AI-powered safety cameras in delivery vehicles

#65

Post by chacha2 » Sun, Mar 28, 2021, 12:15 PM UTC

e-clinton wrote: post #20

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?

There shouldn't be any workplace surveillance.

Re: Amazon driver quits over AI-powered safety cameras in delivery vehicles

#66

Post by dudul » Sun, Mar 28, 2021, 12:17 PM UTC

Kye wrote: post #27

koolba wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 str…

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.

Re: Amazon driver quits over AI-powered safety cameras in delivery vehicles

#67

Post by mft_ » Sun, Mar 28, 2021, 12:18 PM UTC

EarlKing wrote: post #38

mft_ wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Amazon + cameras + AI + sensationalism = clicks? 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…

So you're going to be perfectly OK with people monitoring your vehicle 24/7 for how much you actually use the public roads, right? Because that won't be abused either. And that, by the way, is a perennial suggestion that got floated again recently. How about setting aside whether this is useful and consider that maybe it's blatantly anti-labor? They can already monitor who's wearing a seatbelt or not with vehicle tel…

> So you're going to be perfectly OK with people monitoring your vehicle 24/7 for how much you actually use the public roads, right? Because that won't be abused either. And that, by the way, is a perennial suggestion that got floated again recently.

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?

Re: Amazon driver quits over AI-powered safety cameras in delivery vehicles

#68

Post by tomhoward » Sun, Mar 28, 2021, 12:19 PM UTC

bobmaxup wrote: post #49

tomhoward wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Driver fatigue is an issue for freight companies of all sizes, everywhere, and use of amphetamines to stay awake has been a frequent practice among many drivers for a long time. This is a freight industry issue, not an Amazon issue.

Are you citing this? 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 https://sci-hub.do/10.1136/oemed-2013-101452

I'm just going on media commentary and folklore I've heard since as early as I was old enough to pay attention to such topics in the early 90s. But that study rings true. From what I understand about the industry here in Australia, it's not always just a case of "poor working conditions" (unless poor working conditions includes merely being a truck driver); many long-haul truck drivers are self-employed business operators, and are motivated by competitive pressures and incentives to make as much money as possible for themselves, so it's not always just a case of being treated poorly by evil bosses.

Re: Amazon driver quits over AI-powered safety cameras in delivery vehicles

#69

Post by pirocks » Sun, Mar 28, 2021, 12:20 PM UTC

PaulRobinson wrote: post #52

Kye wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A monitoring system that helps you drive safer is different from a monitoring system that lets your employer judge your driving in real time.

If the vehicle had these features built in by the manufacturer, and it was employer policy that the driver does not disable those features, would you still consider that to be a case of employers "judging" driving behaviour in real time? Or would it perhaps be a perfectly reasonable policy? This is a monitoring system that helps drivers drive safer. Why are you assuming that it's anything else? You're assuming "judge…

My understanding is that this is a system which is recording the driver for review by human management at a later date. Which is very different from anything that would come pre-installed in a vehicle.

Re: Amazon driver quits over AI-powered safety cameras in delivery vehicles

#70

Post by EarlKing » Sun, Mar 28, 2021, 12:22 PM UTC

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #23

Closi wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These also sound like the excuses you come up with to install cameras in every car when you can't say the real reason because of bad PR. 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…

What's the real reason to install those cameras in the car?

Shrinkage. They're trying to point the finger at who's losing their packages. If some sorter scans a package and their tracking system says its in a certain tote number they're going to assume its there even when, in point of fact, it's not. So when a driver reports a package missing... they want to know he didn't just shove it in his bag.

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.