Adrián Astorgano / The Verge
This report is published in partnership with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.
Inside a vast Amazon warehouse in Beaumont, California, squat blue robots carrying eight-foot yellow shelving units perform a jerky, mechanized dance around each other as they make their way to human workers.
Amari* works 42 hours a week there as a stower, placing products on the shelves robots bring to him. “Cameras are trained on your station at all times,” he said. “It’s kind of demeaning to have someone watching over your shoulder at every second.”
But it’s not just Amari’s managers who are watching. An AI camera system also monitors the stowers’ movements — and if it fails, a video is sent to someone thousands of miles away whose input helps to…