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Amazon's Just Walk Out technology relies on hundreds of workers in India watching you shop (www.businessinsider.com)

submitted 7 months ago by steeznson@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[–] Granixo@feddit.cl 63 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I knew it!

[–] steeznson@lemmy.world 53 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Yeah it was always suspect when this "shopping experience" came from the company behind Mechanical Turk.

[–] BobDolesBBallHandle@lemmy.world 8 points 7 months ago

Was about to make the same comment 😉. Will share the wiki instead.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_Turk?wprov=sfti1#

[–] snooggums@midwest.social 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I thought it was China.

[–] steeznson@lemmy.world 10 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I'm not exactly sure how they would have set this up given that their usual solution of Mechanical Turk does not pay their workers in cash anywhere outside of the US.

In some rural parts of the states Mechanical Turk is the largest employer but workers in other countries can only get paid in Amazon vouchers.

Somehow there are still a lot of Indian people working for Mechanical Turk though. It's not clear if they are exchanging the vouchers or are stuck in a hellish walled garden where their wages can only be spent with their employer.

[–] snooggums@midwest.social 9 points 7 months ago

a hellish walled garden where their wages can only be spent with their employer.

There are also a bunch of reports of businesses in India where people with loan debts being forced to work in hellish conditions and not allowed to leave by armed guards, basically indentured servitude/slave labor.

[–] feedum_sneedson@lemmy.world 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Isn't that like, company scrip. I thought that was meant to be illegal.

[–] BakerBagel@midwest.social 1 points 7 months ago

It is, but Uncle Sam can't do anything about how you "pay" your "workforce" in other countries.

I mean, they actually can, but then corporate lobbying groups will be sad, so Congress wont do anything about it.