Unintended Job Losses: Amazon Flex and AI-Driven Decision Making

In an unprecedented move, Amazon Flex, the company's delivery service platform, fired several of its employees using a software algorithm. The decision was based on productivity metrics, leaving many workers questioning the role of artificial intelligence in their employment. This incident underscores the need for responsible AI governance and harm prevention strategies to ensure safe and secure AI operations.

Matched TAIM controls

Suggested mapping from embedding similarity (not a formal assessment). Browse all TAIM controls

GOVERN 4.2 — similarity 0.511, rank 1. TAIM detail and related incidents →
MANAGE 4.3 — similarity 0.511, rank 2. TAIM detail and related incidents →
MANAGE 2.4 — similarity 0.510, rank 3. TAIM detail and related incidents →

Source

Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/111

Data source

Incident data is from the AI Incident Database (AIID).

When citing the database as a whole, please use:

McGregor, S. (2021) Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-21). Virtual Conference.

Pre-print on arXiv · Database snapshots & citation guide

We use weekly snapshots of the AIID for stable reference. For the official suggested citation of a specific incident, use the “Cite this incident” link on each incident page.