Kronos Scheduling Algorithm Allegedly Caused Financial Issues for Starbucks Employees

August 14, 2014

The use of the Kronos scheduling algorithm by Starbucks managers has been alleged to cause financial and scheduling instability for wage workers, potentially disadvantaging them. Such incidents highlight the importance of trustworthy AI governance in maintaining safe and secure AI practices. For those interested in shaping responsible AI decision-making and promoting harm prevention, join HISPI Project Cerebellum by visiting JOIN US.

This incident maps to the Map function within the HISPI Project Cerebellum TAIM, emphasizing the need for clear guardrails for AI scheduling algorithms.

Matched TAIM controls

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

MEASURE 2.6 — similarity 0.653, rank 1. TAIM detail and related incidents →
MAP 3.2 — similarity 0.651, rank 2. TAIM detail and related incidents →
MAP 4.2 — similarity 0.626, rank 3. TAIM detail and related incidents →

Alleged deployer: starbucks
Alleged developer: kronos
Alleged harmed parties: starbucks-employees

Source

Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/10

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.