Factories Begin Strapping Cameras to Human Workers’ Heads to Train Their AI Robot Replacements
by Frank Bergman
Human sweatshop workers across the developing world are now being forced to help train the very robots that will one day eliminate their jobs.
New reporting has exposed how garment workers in the Global South are being made to pull double duty inside factories.
They are still stitching clothes together for low wages.
But now they are also being used as data sources for artificial intelligence systems designed to automate their labor out of existence.
The development is raising major concerns that the shift to automation will plunge the third world further into severe poverty, as the vast majority of jobs are eliminated.
At one factory outside Delhi, India, a 32-year-old garment worker identified as Lalita said employees are required to strap GoPro cameras to their heads at the start of each shift.
“We found it funny at first, because of how we all looked with that headgear,” Lalita told the Guardian.
But the mood quickly changed.
As cameras became a permanent presence on the factory floor, workers grew fearful that every comment and movement could be monitored by management.
“The way people mount a CCTV camera on a wall, they mounted one on us,” Lalita said.
Workers Turned Into Surveillance Tools
The workers said they were never clearly told what the cameras were ultimately being used for.