Post #47369

2025-12-10 01:14 UTC

Bombshell new reporting from 404 Media found that Flock, which has its cameras in thousands of US communities, has been outsourcing its AI to gig workers located in the Philippines. After accessing a cache of exposed data, 404 found documents related to annotating Flock footage, a process sometimes called “AI training.” Workers were tasked with jobs include categorizing vehicles by color, make, and model, transcribing license plates, and labeling various audio clips from car wrecks. In US towns and cities, Flock cameras maintained by local businesses and municipal agencies form centralized surveillance networks for local police. They constantly scan for car license plates, as well as pedestrians, who are categorized based on their clothing, and possibly by factors like gender and race. In a growing number of cases, local police are using Flock to help Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents surveil minority communities. It isn’t clear where all the Flock annotation footage came from, but screenshots included in the documents for data annotators showed license plates from New York, Florida, New Jersey, Michigan, and California. Flock joins the ranks of other fast-moving AI companies that have resorted to low-paid international labor to bring their product to market. Amazon’s cashier-free “just walk out” stores, for example, were really just gig workers watching American shoppers from India. The AI startup Engineer.ai, which purported to make developing code for apps “as easy as ordering a pizza,” was found out to be selling passing human-written code as AI generated. The difference with those examples is that those services were voluntary — powered by the exploitation of workers in the global south, yes, but with a choice to opt out on the front-end. That isn’t the case with Flock, as you don’t have to consent to end up in the panopticon. In other words, for a growing number of Americans, a for-profit company is deciding who gets watched, and who does the watching — a system built on exploitation at either end.

Replies (11)

@AcidiclyBasicGlitch@sh.itjust.works 2025-12-10 01:29

I have to give the broligarchs credit for always somehow managing to leave me stunned. Every time I learn some unbelievable bullshit like this, it’s like falling in hate all over again. As we leave the stagnation of society behind in the ruins of regulations and democracy that only held us back, and the technocratic elite steer us full speed ahead through this “Renaissance” we are truly blessed to be forced to live through, the line between technology and magic continues to blur… Or maybe it’s just 700 sweatshop workers in a trenchcoat. Who’s to say?

Open ##47395
@recursive_recursion@piefed.ca 2025-12-10 02:08

Looks like fraud will be on the rise as AI tech’s just not worth the investment but pretending to use it still reaps in the investments. Alright I’m gonna take a gamble and say that it looks like the AI bubble collapse is basically here.

Open ##47490
@phaedrus@piefed.world 2025-12-10 02:10

The ouroboros vibes are strong with these companies

Open ##47497
@DickFiasco@sh.itjust.works 2025-12-10 02:50

The term “AI” has been misused and misrepresented so much that it’s more of an aesthetic than a technology now.

Open ##47577
@ThePantser@sh.itjust.works 2025-12-10 02:51

AI doesn’t exist, it’s just a bunch of dudes in India.

Open ##47578
@OldQWERTYbastard@lemmy.world 2025-12-10 03:19

It’s not legal where I live, but that didn’t stop me from fighting back. I’m not down with this surveillance state we’re moving into.

Open ##47661
@popekingjoe@lemmy.world 2025-12-10 03:35

Surprise surprise. 🙄🫩

Open ##47725
@Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org 2025-12-10 06:40

The whole world knows already that Us companies are doing such sh*t all the time. But it never ceases to surprise me how Us americans themselves suddenly cry “scandal” as if they hadn’t known already that their companies are doing such sh*t all the time.

Open ##48142
@myfunnyaccountname@lemmy.zip 2025-12-10 13:02

Noticing a trend. You had Amazon use sweatshop workers for their shopping by camera thing. You had that AI company that was just like 400 people in a sweatshop typing away. Now this.

Open ##48709
@zebidiah@lemmy.ca 2025-12-10 13:20

AI = actually Indians

Open ##48752
@Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 2025-12-10 21:25

That headline just keeps getting bleaker as it goes.

Open ##50258