More than 1,000 Amazon employees sign open letter warning the company’s AI ‘will do staggering damage to democracy, our jobs, and the earth’
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/more-1-000-amazon-employees-090200637.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAIHuRfNgL_S6zolXjGI1zfiUcItvqIm0WSsKFOhu1NEVSrqn-4GCgnOKk_7sZzBS-zJXj9LL-kNVL8Cgi-DpH_fjdVALqmRNEePxSNaZCMKfP9sWAQV34urW7d0QAdtLAf0AYYoT4sXAKBQkS9Ow3Lt37ULqknji3mxdUjFO_p81
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>Amazon employees are sounding the alarm on AI in an open letter addressed to CEO Andy Jassy and the company’s senior leadership team.
>The letter was published last week with signatures from over 1,000 unnamed Amazon employees, from Whole Foods cashiers to IT support technicians. It’s a fraction of Amazon’s workforce, which amounts to about 1.53 million, according to the company’s third-quarter earnings release.
>In it, employees claim the company is “casting aside its climate goals to build AI,” forcing them to use the tech while working toward cutting its workforce in favor of AI investments, and helping to build “a more militarized surveillance state with fewer protections for ordinary people.”
>“We, the undersigned Amazon employees, have serious concerns about this aggressive rollout during the global rise of authoritarianism and our most important years to reverse the climate crisis,” the letter’s authors wrote. “We believe that the all-costs-justified, warp-speed approach to AI development will do staggering damage to democracy, to our jobs, and to the earth.”
>The letter pointed out that Amazon’s global carbon emissions have increased since 2019, despite its net-zero goal by 2040.
>*Amazon told Fortune in a statement that the claim the company has abandoned its climate commitments is “categorically false and ignores the facts.”*
>*“Amazon is already committed to powering our operations even more sustainably and investing in carbon-free energy. This includes supporting two advanced nuclear energy agreements and investing in more than 600 renewable energy projects worldwide,” Amazon spokesperson Brad Glasser told Fortune in the statement, adding that the company is working to make operations more energy efficient, including data centers.*
AI isn’t going away. Until its legally regulated, we won’t see any changes. Amazon of all orgs will not care about this letter and will crush anyone in opposition, just like the unions.
It’s interesting that the loudest warnings about AI often come from the people building it.
Are they genuinely worried about the technology, or about the companies choosing profit over safety?
Those 1000 employees signed up for a paycheck to do all of those things, before AI was a threat.
You want change? General strike.
Yet they happily collect their paychecks and vest RSUs.
I wouldn’t be too worried if Rufus on their website is any sign of their capability. I’d be more worried about anthropics and googles AI actually replacing humans.
Barely regulated capitalism doesn’t care about society.
Heavily regulated capitalism does.
Same old same old. Tractors are taking our jobs, said the horse.
Fork trucks are taking our jobs, said the labourers.
Computers are taking our jobs, said the secretary.
Robots are taking our jobs, said 90% of humanity.
We can’t move forward as we are without AI.
Look, if completing the rolling out of AI can end in a universal basic income, drastic reduction in automobile use/fossil fuel emissions, and a more well educated populace then I’m all for it.
Let’s double down; triple down.
But that’s absolutely NOT what the trajectory of all this “progress” currently is; and unfortunately, the current state of US leadership is too short sighted to see beyond the handfuls of cash these tech billionaires are throwing at them, and too aged to understand the implications of our current trajectory, as well as to told to have to worry about the cultural implications (because they’ll all be dead soon).
We as a people need to refute any candidate running for any office that isn’t focused on the implications 20+ years out of the decisions they’ll be forced to make today.
If we’re to survive, the majority of this country (pick your favorite measuring demographic) needs to cohere into one voice, and one ideal.
We are absolutely required to stop letting petty inflammatory remarks divide us.
It’s not new social engineering science to use division to distract. It’s on all of us who received a decent education in this country to provide wisdom to those who are failing to see past the distractions in front of them, and teach them how their decisions impact the bigger picture.
Those who mean to convince you your neighbor is the boogeyman, are absolutely always working against your best interests. Those who seek to blind you with emotion and rage, have a sole goal of distracting you from those truly doing you harm.
If we fail to wake up as a people, we’re doomed to be subjugated and die out.
Amazon employs around 1.5 million people globally, so “more than 1000” is practically nothing.
1000 is less than 0.07% of everyone, why would anyone care ???
It’s interesting how employees are highlighting the ethical concerns around AI’s rapid rollout, especially when it seems to conflict with the company’s climate goals. Balancing innovation with responsibility, both to the environment and to workers, is going to be a major challenge moving forward. It’s a tough line to walk, and it’ll be crucial to see how Amazon responds to these concerns.