Public servants uneasy as government 'spy' robot prowls federal offices
cbc.ca
cbc.ca
Don't get me wrong, though. I believe that employers should never monitor employees with anything that might violate their privacy, like cameras, screen recorders, or similar devices. They should only gather some stats instead, without individually identifying anyone. But obviously, this is not the case now, so why freak out over a robot?
A decay in trust; employees do not trust that counting people is all the robot does, or they don't trust that it won't change in the future without their knowledge.
I don't entirely blame them; I would be equally doubtful that some "enterprising" soul won't come along and turn on the intrusive mode suddenly.
The issue isn't the robot so much as the lack of trust, causing suspicion of things that would otherwise be reasonable.
- You know that someone in there will find "ingenious" ways to work around the goals or rules to be - in their mind - the good guy and go after some self-perceived bad guys. No matter that they will be the bad guys.
- They will find plenty of people to support them.
- There will be no repercussions. Perhaps promotion and a revision of the rules to make what they did acceptable.
- All communication regarding the thing will be tone deaf. Very consciously so, because the communication itself will be about "managing" the perception and employee mood. Not making it match reality.
- The manufacturers themselves are not stupid and know what they need to say and not say.
We have arrived at modes of operation that make trust impossible. Where you have to always second guess what that other person's goals might be. That's a problem (on top of the other problems.)
More succinctly: out of sight, out of mind.
Its not just run-of-the-mill, pointy-headed boss tone-deafness. No. They get that you are miserable, and they love it. The fact that it makes you feel infantilized and powerless is a feature, not a bug.
In "This perfect day" has just as much surveillance, but the people love it. Think how much you love your mobile phone. Big brother could only dream of having a camera and microphone so close to you 24/7.
China's social credit system sounds like another dystopian terror. But...how great would it be to be able to get back at the Bullies, Cat-callers, and assholes who can make you miserable with complete impunity.
You might very well like being able to fight back at them in a way which had a real, material effect on their whole life. After a while, you may even love it, especially if you were getting all kinds of perks and advantages from playing along.
Robots roaming around offices is just about the most Ham-Fisted way I can think of to get employees in line. Of course they will hate it, but even at that, it only can police what the robot sees. More filling and tastes horrible. They could achieve way better results with something which just thrilled their employees.
> In 1984 ... everybody is miserable
"He loved Big Brother." In that story, nobody other than the protagonist considered that they had a bad lot in life because their basic needs were always taken care of and, in the end, Winston was successfully converted to a regular, party-loving citizen.
Of course, I agree with your overall point; people will welcome the dystopia with open arms when it promises to solve all of their problems.
At what point does "dystopia" become "utopia"? If it solves all your problems and you're not unhappy, why is it a "dystopia"?
This reminds me of Huxley's "Brave New World": it's widely considered a dystopia, but it reads to me like a utopian society: everyone has lots of sex, they aren't miserable because of social division and lack of housing, everything is really good. People who don't grow up in the society (savages) consider it terrible, but that's the case for most people today: how many irreligious, urban westerners want to live in a conservative Islamic society, and vice-versa?
So you think you can tell....Heaven from Hell :-) That is a very deep, and interesting question. For the general case, I don't know. Best I can do is pick one specific aspect of a "utopia."
E.g. The Chinese Social Credit system. I would love to benefit from doing random acts of kindness. And I would love to be able to punish bullies and assholes in a meaningful way, which had real impact on their lives.
But, whoever controlled that system would have a lot of power, and a lot of temptation to abuse that power. So much power that it's not a matter of if, but when and how often, that power would be abused. We have people, not angels, so the system would have to work even if it were run by people.
Without very robust checks-n-ballances to prevent abuse, and without robust methods of getting relief from that abuse, even the people who were benefitting from the system would be living in perpetual fear of losing their social credit, through no fault of their own, and finding themselves so encumbered by having no social credit that they would never be able to rebuild the life they had.
So yeah, maybe that's even a candidate for a partial answer to the general case. The system has to work even if it's run by people, not angels.
Something deep inside of me screams in terror at China's social credit system, but, if I stifle that, I can think of some pluses. The rules are explicit--you don't have to worry about breaking an unwritten rule you didn't knowabout. You don't have to play endless games of 20 questions to know where you stand with everybody. And it's nice to be recognized and rewarded in a meaningful way if you do something good.
I guess what worries me is the potential for abuse--at the push of a button, you could be an unperson, saddled with so many punitive encumbrances that you wouldn't have time or resources even to try to exonerate yourself.
You couldn't even move to a new place to try to make a fresh start. I guess that's one of the advantages of an implicit system....if you've burned your relations, you can get a different job, or move to a different neighborhood, and start again.
Its important to have a way back. Some kind of Jubalee system, where ever 7 years your slate is wiped clean, and you can start over gain...
Other than the 360 degree cameras and the location data. Nope. Can't identify anyone using that information.
Anyway, they wrote a program that analyzed employee activity from sources including badge readers and automatically shut off lights when no one was around. Management loved it — because it, inadvertently, allowed them to surveil employees.
>The aim is to create a better work environment for humans — one that isn't too hot, humid or dim. Saad said that means more comfortable and productive employees.
Hello, lighting and climate control are already solved problems? But regardless, deploying roombas riddled with cameras out into the workplace is undoubtedly a step toward making employees feel more "comfortable".
immediately there were questions about "does it give workers orders too?" and "what kind of records are being generated" and those were questions by mild paper reviewers.. not experienced labor attorneys. note: I posted this once here previously and tried to go back to find the citation, but it is currently TODO. This was a refereed paper in a large conference, so someone with better search skills might find it. I definitely recall seeing Walmart Labs on the title page
Ask Sam (as in Sam Walton...'s... ghost?) is their internal system so employees can quickly ask like "what aisle are the great value lightbulbs in" and it quickly spits an answer at you, or can answer things like sales data questions for managers working in their departments.
https://corporate.walmart.com/news/2020/07/29/helping-associ...