As work goes, it was a pretty typical shift for Johnny. An Amazon delivery driver, today’s route took his small cargo van through the wooded hills of Big Bear Lake, the rural outskirts of San Bernardino, California. There was just one caveat: his deliveries were bringing him dangerously close to the maw of a raging wildfire.
Assessing his itinerary on the Amazon Flex app as smoke billowed around him, Johnny realized that his entire delivery route was ablaze. He radioed in to dispatch about the obvious dilemma, assuming they’d call him back to the warehouse.
Instead, Amazon told him to buck up and do his best.
“Amazon said, ‘I know it’s not safe, deliver what you can,'” he later recalled. “But [Amazon] still sent us to an active fire to deliver.'”
If he refused, Johnny knew he could face repercussions: being forced to undergo training on his own time, having his hours cut, or even losing his job altogether. The suite of software on his phone — made up of the Amazon Flex app, eDriving Mentor app, and the DSP Workplace app — combined with the van’s onboard sensors, routing software, and AI-powered cameras, constantly monitor his work, alerting Amazon to any deviation that might require correction.
Yet when it comes to reporting safety violations, hazards, or routing errors like the one bringing him into harm’s way, the tech panopticon surrounding the nearly 400,000 drivers like Johnny fall decidedly flat, like when he was urged back into the path of the blazing wildfire.
The issue of Amazon driver surveillance and worker welfare was the subject of a lengthy investigation by the Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR), a research group led by former Google ethicist Timnit Gebru.
In its latest report, DAIR interviewed Amazon delivery drivers from around the United States — including Johnny, though all names were changed to protect them from retribution — to investigate how algorithmic management and workplace surveillance allows the company to exploit drivers in an uncompromising surveillance dragnet while skirting responsibility for their safety and wellbeing.
One of the key problems facing Amazon’s bottom line is its reliance on human labor. Until it can completely automate delivery drivers — a goal it’s currently throwing tons of money at — Amazon works through a network of Direct Service Partners (DSPs), third-party contractors who do the job of hiring, managing, and firing delivery drivers. This shifts Amazon’s cost structure, relieving it of the costly burden of paying for driver benefits, uniforms, or equipment.
For as much money as it saves, this arrangement also presents a challenge for Amazon when it comes to exercising total authority over those who don the blue vests. Speaking to Futurism, DAIR director of research Alex Hanna said Amazon’s tech panopticon is “central to keeping control” over its workers.
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