More than 1,000 employees from Amazon have publicly voiced their concerns regarding the company’s rapid rollout of artificial intelligence (AI), warning that the initiative could jeopardize “democracy, our jobs, and the earth,” as reported by The Guardian on Friday. The letter underscores the growing unease within one of the world’s largest tech firms as it accelerates its AI expansion.
The signatories span various roles, including engineers, product managers, and warehouse associates, and have garnered support from over 2,400 employees at other major tech companies such as Meta, Google, Apple, and Microsoft. Organized by the advocacy group Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, the letter articulates demands focused on workplace conditions and the environmental impact of Amazon’s AI initiatives.
Key calls from the employees include a demand for Amazon to power all data centers with clean energy, a commitment to ensure that AI systems do not facilitate “violence, surveillance, and mass deportation,” and the establishment of a non-manager working group that would hold significant authority over organizational goals related to AI, including potential layoffs tied to AI implementation.
One worker involved in drafting the letter cited negative experiences with Amazon’s AI tools and broader environmental concerns as motivating factors. A senior software engineer, with over a decade at the company, explained, “I signed the letter because of leadership’s increasing emphasis on arbitrary productivity metrics and quotas, using AI as justification to push myself and my colleagues to work longer hours and push out more projects on tighter deadlines.”
The letter criticizes Amazon for allegedly sidelining its climate goals in favor of AI development, highlighting a plan to invest $150 billion in data centers over the next 15 years, which includes $15 billion in northern Indiana and at least $3 billion in Mississippi. Furthermore, it notes that the company’s annual emissions have increased by roughly 35% since 2019, despite a commitment to achieve net-zero carbon by 2040, raising concerns that the new AI infrastructure could exacerbate reliance on fossil fuels.
A customer researcher quoted in the letter remarked, “AI is being used as a magic word that is code for less worker power, hoarding of more resources, and making an uninformed gamble on high energy demand computer chips magically saving us from climate change. If we can build a climate-saving AI – that’s awesome! But that’s not what Amazon is spending billions of dollars to develop. They are investing fossil fuel energy draining data centers for AI that is intended to surveil, exploit, and squeeze every extra cent out of customers, communities, and government agencies.”
The letter also sheds light on workplace issues related to the internal implementation of AI tools. Several Amazon employees revealed they are being pressured to incorporate AI into their work processes. One software engineer shared, “I’m getting messaging from my direct manager and all the way up the chain about how I should be using AI for coding, for writing, for basically all of my day-to-day tasks…and that if I don’t get on board and use them, I’m going to fall behind, that it’s sort of sink or swim.”
The engineer noted that her manager recently communicated that the team was “expected to do twice as much work because of AI tools,” a demand she labeled as unrealistic, indicating that the tools “are just not making up that gap.”
The customer researcher added, “I have both personally felt the pressure to use AI in my role, and hear from so many of my colleagues they are under the same pressure…All the while, there’s no discussion about the immediate effects on us as workers – from unprecedented layoffs to unrealistic expectations for output.”
A senior software engineer further emphasized that the adoption of AI has led to flawed outcomes. “Recently, I worked on a project that was just cleaning up after a high-level engineer tried to use AI to generate code to complete a complex project. But none of it worked and he didn’t understand why – starting from scratch would have actually been easier,” the engineer explained.
Workers have clarified that they do not oppose AI itself, but are advocating for a more responsible and democratic approach to its development. The senior software engineer concluded, “I see Amazon using AI to justify a power grab over community resources like water and energy, but also over its own workers, who are increasingly subject to surveillance, work speedups, and implicit threats of layoffs. There is a culture of fear around openly discussing the drawbacks of AI at work.”
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