The Future Of Work At Home: Mandatory AI Camera Surveillance

[pipedreams]

Big Brother at Home...............

"Colombia-based call center workers who provide outsourced customer service to some of the nation’s largest companies are being pressured to sign a contract that lets their employer install cameras in their homes to monitor work performance, an NBC News investigation has found.

Six workers based in Colombia for Teleperformance, one of the world’s largest call center companies, which counts Apple, Amazon and Uber among its clients, said that they are concerned about the new contract, first issued in March. The contract allows monitoring by AI-powered cameras in workers’ homes, voice analytics and storage of data collected from the worker’s family members, including minors. Teleperformance employs more than 380,000 workers globally, including 39,000 workers in Colombia.

“The contract allows constant monitoring of what we are doing, but also our family,” said a Bogota-based worker on the Apple account who was not authorized to speak to the news media. “I think it’s really bad. We don’t work in an office. I work in my bedroom. I don’t want to have a camera in my bedroom.”

The worker said that she signed the contract, a copy of which NBC News has reviewed, because she feared losing her job. She said that she was told by her supervisor that she would be moved off the Apple account if she refused to sign the document. She said the additional surveillance technology has not yet been installed."

https://www.technocracy.news/the-future-of-work-at-home-mandatory-ai-camera-surveillance/

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/big-tech-call-center-workers-face-pressure-accept-home-surveillance-n1276227

 

[ChuteTheMall]

  In my day, we had to drive all the way to the office to moon the boss. 

[Batesmotel]

On one side, Big Brother Sucks. 
 

On the other side many remote workers don’t actually work. Employers are getting sick of it. 
 

My daughter is constantly picking up the slack of remote coworkers who don’t work. She has incredible job security because of it but the extra work sucks. 
 

My wife manages remote working code monkeys. Many know every trick in the book on how to fake work. At least one has another job and is getting full time pay for barely part time with for ether. She just can’t prove what they are doing. 
 

What’s an employer to do!

[railfancwb]

Who will be monitoring the monitors - someone else who works at home?

[pipedreams]

2 hours ago, Batesmotel said:

On one side, Big Brother Sucks. 
 

On the other side many remote workers don’t actually work. Employers are getting sick of it. 
 

My daughter is constantly picking up the slack of remote coworkers who don’t work. She has incredible job security because of it but the extra work sucks. 
 

My wife manages remote working code monkeys. Many know every trick in the book on how to fake work. At least one has another job and is getting full time pay for barely part time with for ether. She just can’t prove what they are doing. 
 

What’s an employer to do!

This is why many companies bring people back into the office at least a few day a week.  While the employers have a right to complain their getting off easy,  by getting rid of a massive amount of office space.

[crockett]

Looks like the technology we created is our own successor and will soon be at the end of the food chain.

Looks like Harlan Ellison, the guy who wrote the Terminator story, was well ahead of time.

 

 

 

 

[LostinTexas]

I know what I think of this, and think it is justified.

If you want to monitor people, then open your offices up and deal with it. If you encourage work from home, then you get the down tick in work hours. In the end, you probably get as much or more productivity as office based.

For the most part, you get more satisfied workers. If you hire less than motivated, you will get that. Where they are less than motivated makes no difference. Of almost every call center I have subjected myself to, they attract the lowest denominator anyway. Service centers aren't much if any better.

"Big Brother" watching over them won't gain any improved relationships. The possibility of spying on the employees is not going to gain any satisfaction either.

[railfancwb]

Keystroke counting has long been a thing in data entry environments. 

[Batesmotel]

1 minute ago, LostinTexas said:

If you want to monitor people, then open your offices up and deal with it.

My wife is having software developers refusing to return to the office. They like not being monitored. They are acting like petulance little brats. They like the pay. They have just gotten used to doing their own thing if and when they want to.
 

Problem is that they are WAY off track from what the users need. They just can’t find code types to take the jobs. All the code monkeys are happy faking working from home for other companies. 

[LostinTexas]

47 minutes ago, Batesmotel said:

My wife is having software developers refusing to return to the office. They like not being monitored. They are acting like petulance little brats. They like the pay. They have just gotten used to doing their own thing if and when they want to.
 

Problem is that they are WAY off track from what the users need. They just can’t find code types to take the jobs. All the code monkeys are happy faking working from home for other companies. 

You know how to solve that, right? Don't say they aren't expendable because everyone is, and why pay for a product that isn't beneficial.

I guess I see everything is no shades of gray. It really bothered a lot of people I worked for in the past. I never figured how, but it did.

[crockett]

Reminds me of my first responder days, a long time ago, while going to college. I did stand-by duty over the weekend for 48 hours straight. On Friday night I would drive to my employer and pick up an emergency vehicle and a pager that was wirelessly linked to the radio in the vehicle. Every time an emergency doctor was need, either at an accident scene or at a patients house, the radio set off the pager with an alarm. Then I had to get into the emergency vehicle quickly, radio in to the dispatcher, write down the address, condition of patient and time, leave with code, pick up the doctor at his home, tell him about the case, and let him decide if we continue under code or go the speed limits.

Some weekends I was out for 14 plus hours in one shot, running from one case to another, with not much time to eat or anything else, making it home for a nap, just to get out again 5 min later.

On other weekends I only had 2 or 3 calls in 48 hours and was bored out of my mind sitting at home. On those weekends you become creative. While all other employees just stayed at home, waiting for the next call, I started to take the emergency vehicle out for grocery shopping, visiting friends, going to the arcade hall for some pool billiard, etc. I always made sure to be closer to the Doctor's home when I was out on my own, so it was an advantage for the patients by being able to show up faster.

At some point my boss got a call from a random person, complaining about me, hanging out at the arcade with an emergency vehicle. At first he was pissed, but when I explained to him that my drive to the doctor is much shorter in those cases, he quickly stopped caring and let me do my own thing.

I miss those times. Felt like a race car driver on the weekends, going mostly code.

We also arrange transfers with the local emergency helicopters. They would land on an interstate or field and I would bring the doctor so he could give care to a patient on his way to the hospital. At times they even did emergency surgeries in-flight.

Anyways, having workers staying put at home on stand-by or forcing them to come to an office is outdated and outlandish. If you have to control your workers in person or with cameras, you need to fire you entire HR department!

 

 

They are still using the same concept and the same style vehicles today.

 

[Batesmotel]

2 hours ago, LostinTexas said:

You know how to solve that, right? Don't say they aren't expendable because everyone is, and why pay for a product that isn't beneficial.

I guess I see everything is no shades of gray. It really bothered a lot of people I worked for in the past. I never figured how, but it did.

She is dealing with government contractors. Can’t cancel the contract until she has a replacement. Can’t find replacements. Sucks.