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Hi-Tech Dystopia Watch

ItWillNeverWork

ItWillNeverWork

Messy Crimbobs, fellow humans.
I honestly don't know if this will be a popular thread or not, or if it will just elicit mockery of the stylish new tin foil hat I'm considering buying. Either way, here goes.

What with the growing influence of the CCP and the social credit system (see links below), I thought I would create a place for people to post links of similar attempts by countries and corporations to implement hi tech mechanisms of control, coercion, manipulation, disinformation and general all-round skull-diggery of a dystopic nature.

Also it might be useful to keep a record of opressive and totalitarian laws, both being proposed and passed across the globe.

Here's an interesting one being proposed by some evil villains in Australia:

South Australia are currently trialling an app that they hope to roll out across the state to enforce lockdowns. The app combines facial recognition and geolocation technology. The government will randomly contact users to demand their location. Users will have 15 minutes to respond with a photo of them self to prove they are where they should be. If they fail to respond they will get a phone call, and if they do not have a sufficient excuse they will get a visit from a friendly police officer.

Some other links relating to the CCP's social credit system:

China’s social credit system ‘could interfere in other nations’ sovereignty’
China bans 23m from buying travel tickets as part of 'social credit' system
Compulsory romance lessons among proposals at China's political conference
 
Brainaddict said:
Amazon leading the way with this in Western countries - massive monitoring of staff and auto-firing delivery drivers. I think both unions and legislation will take years to catch up with the level of tech Amazon can bring to bear on erasing all humanity and decency. It's worrying. Bloomberg - Are you a robot?
Click to expand...

Some rather depressing quotes from that article:

Increasingly, the company is ceding its human-resources operation to machines as well, using software not only to manage workers in its warehouses but to oversee contract drivers, independent delivery companies and even the performance of its office workers.
Click to expand...
Amazon knew delegating work to machines would lead to mistakes and damaging headlines, these former managers said, but decided it was cheaper to trust the algorithms than pay people to investigate mistaken firings so long as the drivers could be replaced easily.
Click to expand...
Inside Amazon, the Flex program is considered a great success, whose benefits far outweigh the collateral damage, said a former engineer who helped design the system. “Executives knew this was gonna shit the bed,” this person said. “That’s actually how they put it in meetings. The only question was how much poo we wanted there to be.”
Click to expand...
When Ryan Cope was deactivated in 2019, he didn’t bother arguing or consider paying for arbitration. By then, Cope had already decided there was no way he could meet the algorithms’ demands.
Click to expand...
Amazon has automated its human-resources operation more than most companies. But the use of algorithms to make decisions affecting people’s lives is increasingly common. Machines can approve loan applications, and even decide if someone deserves parole or should stay behind bars.
Click to expand...
 
Brainaddict said:
Amazon leading the way with this in Western countries - massive monitoring of staff and auto-firing delivery drivers. I think both unions and legislation will take years to catch up with the level of tech Amazon can bring to bear on erasing all humanity and decency. It's worrying. Bloomberg - Are you a robot?
Click to expand...
The thing about Amazon is, the selling side is just a small part of it, one of the main parts of the business is the cloud stuff AWS' (Amazon web services) which many many companies are migrating to. All they need to do is pull the plug and millions will be fucked.
 
ruffneck23 said:
The thing about Amazon is, the selling side is just a small part of it, one of the main parts of the business is the cloud stuff AWS' (Amazon web services) which many many companies are migrating to. All they need to do is pull the plug and millions will be fucked.
Click to expand...
It's not pulling the plug I'm worried about. It's the worming their way into the surveillance and algorithmic organisation of everything. People who have Alexas are nuts imo.
 
Brainaddict said:
It's not pulling the plug I'm worried about. It's the worming their way into the surveillance and algorithmic organisation of everything. People who have Alexas are nuts imo.
Click to expand...

Or Ring cameras.

Most insurance companies have a "program" that will save you about $100 a year on your car insurance. You download their tracking app onto your phone and it will monitor your driving and adjust your policy terms depending on safe they rate your driving. This is currently optional, but you'll notice that a lot of this tech is optional until they get some tipping point of people opting in and then its mandatory. Here's an example:


Its like making you scan items in at Walmart or Target. At first it was optional and now, at least where I live, its mandatory if you want to shop there. And, lets face it, its just a scheme to get free labor out of you and to fire their (under)paid workforce. TBH, I never did shop much at Walmart, but I did some at Target. At this point, I think I'll just quit buying "stuff." I have too much stuff anyway.
 
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Brainaddict said:
It's not pulling the plug I'm worried about. It's the worming their way into the surveillance and algorithmic organisation of everything. People who have Alexas are nuts imo.
Click to expand...
When they control where your company is hosted, by being the hosted infrastructure they can survey everything if they wish from a much higher level, so it's all lumped into the same thing. It is scary.
 
Yuwipi Woman said:
Its like making you scan items in at Walmart or Target. At first it was optional and now, at least where I live, its mandatory if you want to shop there. And, lets face it, its just a scheme to get free labor out of you and to fire their (under)paid workforce. TBH, I never did shop much at Walmart, but I did some at Target. At this point, I think I'll just quit buying "stuff." I have too much stuff anyway.
Click to expand...

Scanning anything at all will be old hat in the not too distant. We'll just be able to walk out with the products a la Amazon Fresh

www.bbc.co.uk

Amazon Fresh till-less grocery store opens in London

The shop will stock hundreds of new own-brand items including UK-sourced milk and desserts.
www.bbc.co.uk
 
Advancements in riot control technologies, coming to a urban environment near you:











I seem to remember that Soylent Green took place in 2022.... Call in the scoops!
 
ska invita said:
This is an amazing short watch of what the augmented future may well look like
Click to expand...

Having worked for an AR start up, and for an AR part of one of the FAANG companies, that video is bang on the money. The person behind it was in a senior position at Microsoft.

Although it, of course, will be much worse than that, because Facebook have got a patent for their eye tracking analytics tech, which will be used with AR wearables, which will have to be linked to a FB account, and will probably also use location and orientation data to build up a picture of what the user is looking at.
 
Brainaddict said:
Amazon leading the way with this in Western countries - massive monitoring of staff and auto-firing delivery drivers. I think both unions and legislation will take years to catch up with the level of tech Amazon can bring to bear on erasing all humanity and decency. It's worrying. Bloomberg - Are you a robot?
Click to expand...

With regards to Amazon drivers being "auto-fired" this is particially true.

It's ONLY the Amazon Flex drivers that the computer would possibly fire. Amazon Flex drivers are part time, in what is regarded as a supplemental income. They aren't really managed by anyone because it's a large number of people each allocated a small amount of work.

Normal Amazon drivers are ALWAYS hired to work for a DSP (Delivery Solutions Provider) - as time has gone on, the DSPs have had less power to decide what work each driver gets, the computer decides, based on their performance what is the best route for them to do. All of those drivers, which are most of them, are self employed.

I used to be one such driver and while sometimes on the way out of the depot I thought "Fuck me, how will I ever get this pile of shite delivered...I hate this job", by the time I get about 2/3rds of it done, I start to think "Ahhh it's not that bad!!!!".

Believe it or not, what most drivers are concerned about is fairness. Are they getting a fair go compared to other drivers working in the same pay band?

Well .... it's as fair as at can be. There's a whole load of factors involved to keep things fair, which is why the areas that the DSPs are allocated seem to be swapped around about every 3 or 4 months. For example, drivers that deliver more local to the office do more deliveries than those sat on their arses driving to the routes that are far from the depot.

Would drivers want as a regular full time employee? I haven't really asked around and even if I did, I would never be able to ask a credible number of drivers, but I suspect the answer would be an overwhelming "NO".

The reason being is that there are so many drivers, it allows for flexibility. If you're a regulat Amazon driver (Not Flex) you can ask your DSP for a few days off next week and it's NEVER a problem, unless it's a peak period like November or December.

Also, a number of the drivers have their own vans. When things are slack at Amazon, or even if they want a break from Amazon, they can always do other work on the side.

Computers monitoring performance does mean that in logistics people have to work well and can't slack off, but when it comes to delivery drivers, there's no other way to do it, because without it, the drivers would just slack off, such is human nature. There's also very important data that comes back from such monitoring, whereby the GPS/Routing can be improved. They even get to see the path that drivers walked as well as drove.

What drivers would really need help with is blacklisting. No one can prove it, but, well, for some, despite doing nothing wrong, they can't walk into a new DSP ... they get dropped during the hire process ... you know, like ghosted.

In my experience, an Amazon driver delivery is a sustainable job. You're not worked to death, because of the nature of the job. Every driver enounters traffic and Amazon knows that traffic is genuine as the DSPs have systems to monitor road traffic.

With the exception of blacklisting, I wouldn't worry about the drivers, they love a good moan while chatting in the overflow carparks before work, but it's the fullfilment staff who need all the help as they are really worked hard in an envrionment that Amazon complety controls.
 
I was talking recently to someone who works as a delivery driver recently & what he said was a bit contrary to my perception up until then ... he said that if you just crack on with doing he work it's flexible and well paid. He wasn't working for Amazon, I think it was maybe Fedex. He said that he'd start his day and work quickly and be done by early afternoon, meaning he could then do stuff like picking his kids up from school. He told me what he (and a mate of his) earned in a year and, assuming he was telling the truth it was quite a bit - more than I earn anyway. But, he was young-ish and energetic, and I wondered if his runs were of the type I sometimes see which feature some not very careful driving.

On the other hand when I speak to the Hermes (whatever it's called now) driver who delivers to me sometimes, although kind of cheerful she often seems quite stressed and complaining about things to do with how Hermes treat her. She has stuck with the job for a few years though, despite telling me a few times she's had enough.
 
teuchter said:
I was talking recently to someone who works as a delivery driver recently & what he said was a bit contrary to my perception up until then ... he said that if you just crack on with doing he work it's flexible and well paid. He wasn't working for Amazon, I think it was maybe Fedex. He said that he'd start his day and work quickly and be done by early afternoon, meaning he could then do stuff like picking his kids up from school. He told me what he (and a mate of his) earned in a year and, assuming he was telling the truth it was quite a bit - more than I earn anyway. But, he was young-ish and energetic, and I wondered if his runs were of the type I sometimes see which feature some not very careful driving.

On the other hand when I speak to the Hermes (whatever it's called now) driver who delivers to me sometimes, although kind of cheerful she often seems quite stressed and complaining about things to do with how Hermes treat her. She has stuck with the job for a few years though, despite telling me a few times she's had enough.
Click to expand...
I know a FedEx driver and he got worked so hard be had to get signed off sick. I guess anecdotes don't get us that far
 
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