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posted by Fnord666 on Monday September 10 2018, @12:42PM   Printer-friendly
from the the-man-in-the-box dept.

Years after patenting the concept, Amazon admits putting workers in a cage would be a bad idea:

Warehouse workers confined in cages? That's the dark vision evoked by an essay delving into the worries that come along with the development of artificial-intelligence devices such as the Amazon Echo speaker.

"Anatomy of an AI System" was published on Friday by the AI Now Institute and Share Lab — and it's already gotten a rise from the executive in charge of Amazon's distribution system, who says the cage concept never ended up being used.

The 7,300-word essay was written by Kate Crawford, who is a principal researcher at Microsoft Research as well as co-founder and co-director of New York University's AI Now Institute; and Vladan Joler, director of the Share Foundation and a professor at the University of Novi Sad in Serbia.

Crawford and Joler focused on the human and industrial angles behind the Echo device, rather than strictly on the computer science behind artificial intelligence. The topics range from the extraction of raw materials that go into the electronics, to the labor that's required to build the devices, to the roles played by Amazon Web Services, Amazon's Mechanical Turk crowdsourcing network and the Amazon distribution system.

"At every level, contemporary technology is deeply rooted in and running on the exploitation of human bodies," the authors wrote.

[...] Amazon's inventors said the device was designed to keep workers safe if they had to cross paths with warehouse robots that could pose an injury hazard — for example, when picking up fallen items, dealing with a malfunctioning robot or crossing an off-limits area to get to a restroom.


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  • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday September 10 2018, @06:04PM (2 children)

    by DeathMonkey (1380) on Monday September 10 2018, @06:04PM (#732851) Journal

    Yeah, agreed, when designing mechanical safety measures for dangerous machines you've really only got two options: Put the cage around the machine or put the cage around the human.

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  • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday September 10 2018, @07:15PM (1 child)

    by bob_super (1357) on Monday September 10 2018, @07:15PM (#732874)

    30 years ago, someone told me that the manufacturing of pressure cookers require a massive press, which will not stop just because some silly person put their arm at the wrong place. The original solution to the problem of having to clean up products and machine was, I was told, to require the operator (lady) to wear cables/chains on her wrists to prevent her from accidentally crossing into the splat zone.
    No exactly a disturbing concept, in context.

    • (Score: 2) by donkeyhotay on Monday September 10 2018, @09:31PM

      by donkeyhotay (2540) on Monday September 10 2018, @09:31PM (#732923)

      The summer after I graduated high school, before I went into the Navy, I worked in a wire products factory on machines that did spot-welding to make various products (things like wire shelves for store displays and the like). One of the machines I was assigned to for a week had cables with wrist bands, much as you described, to make sure my hands did not get crushed by the welding mechanism. I can assure you that one of the reasons I can type this reply is because of that safety mechanism.