18
votes
How hard will the robots make us work? In warehouses, call centers, and other sectors, intelligent machines are managing humans, and they’re making work more stressful, grueling, and dangerous
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- Title
- Robots aren't taking our jobs - they're becoming our bosses
- Published
- Feb 27 2020
- Word count
- 5902 words
Really good in-depth article with several real life examples. It read like the backdrop to a dystoptian novel. As someone who works in tech as a developer, this is one of the things that concerns me the most about the future aside from climate change. The affects of unregulated automation are going to devastate far more people and communities than closing coal mines or manufacturing plants in the midwest ever did.
This problem existed way before the whole A.I fear train left the station. I worked at a warehouse in 2013 that had rate. The scanners we used were from the 2005-ish era. Rate was hell, you'd absolutely get fired for not keeping up.
My point is that this problem isn't caused by A.I. it's a human problem that has been around since the industrial age. Using tech as a scapegoat obfuscates the real issue.
I agree completely. The article talks so much about how technology is driving the ability to push for unsustainable metrics, but it doesn't really give a lot of credence to the idea that the tech itself is merely a tool being used. Humans are setting those metrics: from what amounts are being expected to which data points are being measured.
Behind the tech are people choosing to push workers to the absolute limits of their humanity through invasive surveillance and uncompromising accountability.
I do still think this is a great article and a valuable read -- I just think it misses a key point in its analysis.