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content/factor/stillnotrobots.md
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@ -54,9 +54,9 @@ As the grandaughters of that 15 year old girl, we do not know different working
> One of Amazon’s many revenue streams is a virtual labor marketplace called MTurk. It’s a platform for businesses to hire inexpensive, on-demand labor for simple ‘microtasks’ that resist automation for one reason or another. If a company needs data double-checked, images labeled, or surveys filled out, they can use the marketplace to offer per-task work to anyone willing to accept it. MTurk is short for Mechanical Turk, a reference to a famous hoax: an automaton which played chess but concealed a human making the moves.
The name is thus tongue-in-cheek, and in a telling way; MTurk is a much-celebrated innovation that relies on human work taking place out of sight and out of mind. Businesses taking advantage of its extremely low costs are perhaps encouraged to forget or ignore the fact that humans are doing these rote tasks, often for pennies.
>The name is thus tongue-in-cheek, and in a telling way; MTurk is a much-celebrated innovation that relies on human work taking place out of sight and out of mind. Businesses taking advantage of its extremely low costs are perhaps encouraged to forget or ignore the fact that humans are doing these rote tasks, often for pennies.
Jeff Bezos has described the microtasks of MTurk workers as “artificial artificial intelligence;” the norm being imitated is therefore that of machinery: efficient, cheap, standing in reserve, silent and obedient. MTurk calls its job offerings “Human Intelligence Tasks” as additional indication that simple, repetitive tasks requiring human intelligence are unusual in today’s workflows.
>Jeff Bezos has described the microtasks of MTurk workers as “artificial artificial intelligence;” the norm being imitated is therefore that of machinery: efficient, cheap, standing in reserve, silent and obedient. MTurk calls its job offerings “Human Intelligence Tasks” as additional indication that simple, repetitive tasks requiring human intelligence are unusual in today’s workflows.
- from: Daniel Affsprung, [The Past and Future of “Artificial Artificial Intelligence“, Cyborgology](https://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2021/04/19/the-past-and-future-of-artificial-artificial-intelligence/ ), *The Society Pages*, April 19, 2021.
@ -64,9 +64,9 @@ Jeff Bezos has described the microtasks of MTurk workers as “artificial artifi
> A cage for workers on wheels. It sounds like the stuff of science fiction. It’s not. In 2016, Amazon filed a patent for a device described as a “system and method for transporting personnel within an active workplace”. It is actually a cage large enough to fit a worker. It’s mounted on top of an automated trolley device. A robotic arm faces outwards.
The worker cage was designed by Amazon’s robotic engineers. It was intended to protect workers in Amazon’s warehouses when they needed to venture into spaces where robot stock-pickers whizz around. Amazon’s worker cage was quietly patented and only came to global attention thanks to the diligent digging of two academics. When the workers’ cage started to appear in newspaper headlines, Amazon executives declared it a “bad idea”.
>The worker cage was designed by Amazon’s robotic engineers. It was intended to protect workers in Amazon’s warehouses when they needed to venture into spaces where robot stock-pickers whizz around. Amazon’s worker cage was quietly patented and only came to global attention thanks to the diligent digging of two academics. When the workers’ cage started to appear in newspaper headlines, Amazon executives declared it a “bad idea”.
Amazon may have dropped the plans, but that should not come as a surprise. The company doesn’t need a robotic cage for workers – it already has one of the most all-pervasive control systems in history. In its huge warehouses, workers carry hand-held computers that control their movements. A wristband patented by the company (but which is not yet in use) can direct the movement of workers’ hands using “haptic feedback”. Stock pickers in Amazon warehouses are watched by cameras, and workers have reportedly been reduced to urinating in bottles in order to hit their targets, and they are constantly reminded of their productivity rates. Investigations by journalists have also exposed a worryingly high level of ambulance call-outs to Amazon warehouses in the UK.
>Amazon may have dropped the plans, but that should not come as a surprise. The company doesn’t need a robotic cage for workers – it already has one of the most all-pervasive control systems in history. In its huge warehouses, workers carry hand-held computers that control their movements. A wristband patented by the company (but which is not yet in use) can direct the movement of workers’ hands using “haptic feedback”. Stock pickers in Amazon warehouses are watched by cameras, and workers have reportedly been reduced to urinating in bottles in order to hit their targets, and they are constantly reminded of their productivity rates. Investigations by journalists have also exposed a worryingly high level of ambulance call-outs to Amazon warehouses in the UK.
- from: Andrè Spicer, [Amazon’s ‘worker cage’ has been dropped, but its staff are not free](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/14/amazon-worker-cage-staff), *The Guardian*, 14th September 2018.
@ -115,9 +115,9 @@ from: Helen Hester, [Technically Female: Women, Machines, and Hyperemployment](h
>Accents are a constant hurdle for millions of call center workers, especially in countries like the Philippines and India, where an entire “accent neutralization” industry tries to train workers to sound more like the western customers they’re calling – often unsuccessfully. As reported in SFGate this week, Sanas hopes its technology can provide a shortcut. Using data about the sounds of different accents and how they correspond to each other, Sanas’s AI engine can transform a speaker’s accent into what passes for another one – and right now, the focus is on making non-Americans sound like white Americans.
[...]
Narayana said he had heard the criticism, but he argued that Sanas approaches the world as it is. “Yes, this is wrong, and we should not have existed at all. But a lot of things exist in the world – like why does makeup exist? Why can’t people accept the way they are? Is it wrong, the way the world is? Absolutely. But do we then let agents suffer? I built this technology for the agents, because I don’t want him or her to go through what I went through.” The comparison to makeup is unsettling. If society – or say, an employer – pressures certain people to wear makeup, is it a real choice? And though Sanas frames its technology as opt-in, it’s not hard to envision a future in which this kind of algorithmic “makeup” becomes more widely available – and even mandatory.
>Narayana said he had heard the criticism, but he argued that Sanas approaches the world as it is. “Yes, this is wrong, and we should not have existed at all. But a lot of things exist in the world – like why does makeup exist? Why can’t people accept the way they are? Is it wrong, the way the world is? Absolutely. But do we then let agents suffer? I built this technology for the agents, because I don’t want him or her to go through what I went through.” The comparison to makeup is unsettling. If society – or say, an employer – pressures certain people to wear makeup, is it a real choice? And though Sanas frames its technology as opt-in, it’s not hard to envision a future in which this kind of algorithmic “makeup” becomes more widely available – and even mandatory.
From: Wilfred Chan, [The AI startup erasing call center worker accents: is it fighting bias – or perpetuating it?](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/aug/23/voice-accent-technology-call-center-white-american), *The Guardian*, 24th August 2022
- from: Wilfred Chan, [The AI startup erasing call center worker accents: is it fighting bias – or perpetuating it?](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/aug/23/voice-accent-technology-call-center-white-american), *The Guardian*, 24th August 2022
# Caring like a cyborg: contemporary healthcare struggles