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Incident 125: Amazon’s Robotic Fulfillment Centers Have Higher Serious Injury Rates

Description: Amazon’s robotic fulfillment centers have higher serious injury rates.

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Alleged: Amazon developed and deployed an AI system, which harmed Amazon fulfillment center workers.

Incident Stats

Incident ID
125
Report Count
3
Incident Date
2020-09-29
Editors
Sean McGregor, Khoa Lam
Applied Taxonomies
GMF, CSETv1, MIT

CSETv1 Taxonomy Classifications

Taxonomy Details

Incident Number

The number of the incident in the AI Incident Database.
 

125

GMF Taxonomy Classifications

Taxonomy Details

Known AI Goal Snippets

One or more snippets that justify the classification.
 

(Snippet Text: But a new cache of company records obtained by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting – including internal safety reports and weekly injury numbers from its nationwide network of fulfillment centers – shows that company officials have profoundly misled the public and lawmakers about its record on worker safety., Related Classifications: Robotic Manipulation), (Snippet Text: Not long after, Barrera was written up by a different manager for too much “Time Off Task,” Amazon’s system for tracking employee productivity., Related Classifications: Activity Tracking, Automatic Skill Assessment), (Snippet Text: Minutes later her supervisor materialized to ask why she’d stopped scanning. “I was thinking, how did she know I was not scanning? , Related Classifications: Activity Tracking)

Known AI Goal Classification Discussion

Free text with comments justifying the chosen classification (e.g. based on information on selected snippets and technical analysis), if needed.
 

Robotic Manipulation: Robots set up too fast of a pace.

MIT Taxonomy Classifications

Machine-Classified
Taxonomy Details

Risk Subdomain

A further 23 subdomains create an accessible and understandable classification of hazards and harms associated with AI
 

7.3. Lack of capability or robustness

Risk Domain

The Domain Taxonomy of AI Risks classifies risks into seven AI risk domains: (1) Discrimination & toxicity, (2) Privacy & security, (3) Misinformation, (4) Malicious actors & misuse, (5) Human-computer interaction, (6) Socioeconomic & environmental harms, and (7) AI system safety, failures & limitations.
 
  1. AI system safety, failures, and limitations

Entity

Which, if any, entity is presented as the main cause of the risk
 

AI

Timing

The stage in the AI lifecycle at which the risk is presented as occurring
 

Post-deployment

Intent

Whether the risk is presented as occurring as an expected or unexpected outcome from pursuing a goal
 

Unintentional

Incident Reports

Reports Timeline

+2
Amazon’s robotic fulfillment centers have higher serious injury rates
California Passes Warehouse Worker Bill, Taking Aim at Amazon
Amazon’s robotic fulfillment centers have higher serious injury rates

Amazon’s robotic fulfillment centers have higher serious injury rates

revealnews.org

What are injury rates like at Amazon warehouses?

What are injury rates like at Amazon warehouses?

revealnews.org

California Passes Warehouse Worker Bill, Taking Aim at Amazon

California Passes Warehouse Worker Bill, Taking Aim at Amazon

wired.com

Amazon’s robotic fulfillment centers have higher serious injury rates
revealnews.org · 2020

Robots. Prime Day. Holiday peak. Internal records show Amazon has deceived the public on rising injury rates among its warehouse workers.

On Cyber Monday 2014, Amazon operations chief Dave Clark proudly unveiled the company’s new warehouse …

What are injury rates like at Amazon warehouses?
revealnews.org · 2020

Amazon’s warehouse injury rates have been secret for years despite mounting public concerns over labor practices and lack of worker safety. With access to a trove of new internal records, Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting i…

California Passes Warehouse Worker Bill, Taking Aim at Amazon
wired.com · 2021

Warehouse workers in California are one step closer to being able to pee in peace. Yesterday, the state Senate voted 26 to 11 to pass AB 701, a bill aimed squarely at Amazon and other warehousing companies that track worker productivity. Th…

Variants

A "variant" is an incident that shares the same causative factors, produces similar harms, and involves the same intelligent systems as a known AI incident. Rather than index variants as entirely separate incidents, we list variations of incidents under the first similar incident submitted to the database. Unlike other submission types to the incident database, variants are not required to have reporting in evidence external to the Incident Database. Learn more from the research paper.

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