How Augmentation-Washing Hides Labor Automation

Recent reporting by The New York Times reveals that one of the nation's largest employers, Amazon, has mapped out plans to automate 75 percent of its US warehouse and logistics operations—a transformation (if left unchallenged) that could avoid the hiring of as many as 600,000 workers by 2033 or eliminate their roles outright. But, close readers will notice that Amazon doesn’t frame this change as one of replacement but rather collaboration. The internal documents obtained by the Times show that Amazon has deliberately sought to avoid terms like “automation” and “AI” — and has swapped the term “robot” for the portmanteau “cobot” (or “collaborative robot”)...