Bloomberg's Dave Lee reported that the smart glasses Amazon is giving its delivery drivers take photos through the whole shift, possibly several thousand on a single route. They're still photos, not video, and they go to Wellspring, Amazon's generative AI platform. Amazon uses them to build detailed maps of the streets its vans cover and to shave time off the last stretch of every delivery, the walk from the van to your door.
The hardware, per Android Headlines, is a monochrome head-up display, meaning a small readout that sits in the driver's view, with two cameras facing forward. A cable runs to a puck on the driver's hip that holds the processor and the battery. Prescription lenses fit. Through the glasses a driver scans packages without a handheld, follows walking directions, gets a warning when there's a pet at the address and takes the proof-of-delivery photo without reaching for a phone.
Viraj Chatterjee, the Amazon executive leading the rollout, says the goal is speed and fewer packages left at the wrong door. Drivers wearing the glasses have already made more than 275,000 deliveries in pilot tests. Amazon wants 5,000 drivers in them by the end of this year and more than 20,000 by 2027.
The photos catch front yards, backyards, neighbors and anyone passing by, and none of them agreed to be in the frame. Chatterjee said Amazon automatically blurs faces and license plates before a person reviews the files. He also acknowledged that Amazon has no way for a homeowner to opt out, and no fixed limit on how long it keeps the images. Amazon confirmed to Bloomberg that police can get them with a valid warrant.
Amazon says wearing the glasses is voluntary, and there's a manual privacy mode for breaks. Drivers aren't convinced. Their vans already carry AI cameras that track how they drive, and some on Reddit suspect the mapping data will eventually train the autonomous delivery robots that could take their jobs.
Meta said last week that owners of its AI glasses will be able to opt out of having their camera data used for AI training. A homeowner photographed by Amazon's glasses has no such choice.