Staff at Canon’s Beijing offices can only enter if they are SMILING after AI cameras were installed to ensure workers were ‘positive’
- Employees must also smile if they want to book conference rooms for meetings
- The ‘smile recognition’ technology was installed by Canon Information Technology, the Chinese subsidiary of Canon, in their Beijing office
- The aim is to ensure the staff will create a positive environment in the office
Chinese staff at Canon can only enter the tech company’s offices if they are smiling after AI cameras were installed to ensure workers were positive at work.
Employees must smile at the cameras if they also want to book conference rooms for meetings after the ‘smile recognition’ technology was installed.
The aim is to ensure that the staff, by having a grin on their face, will create a positive environment in the office and increase morale.
Chinese staff at Canon can only enter the tech company’s offices if they are smiling after AI cameras were installed to ensure workers were positive at work
The workspace management system was installed last year by Canon Information Technology, the Chinese subsidiary of Japanese camera maker Canon, in the company’s Beijing office, the Financial Times reports. There are also plans for the AI cameras to be used by companies in Singapore.
But staff have complained the system is a way of ‘manipulating’ their emotions if they are forced to smile whenever they enter the office or book a room.
‘So now the companies are not only manipulating our time, but also our emotions,’ one person posted on Weibo.
However, a spokesperson for Canon China insisted that the AI cameras would encourage a more positive atmosphere in the workplace.
‘We have been wanting to encourage employees to create a positive atmosphere by utilising this system with the smile detection setting “on”,’ the spokesperson told the newspaper.
‘Mostly, people are just too shy to smile, but once they get used to smiles in the office, they just keep their smiles without the system which created positive and lively atmosphere.’
Employees must smile if they also want to book conference rooms for meetings after the ‘smile recognition’ technology was installed
It comes as a growing number of Chinese firms are using AI technology to monitor their workforce and increase productivity.
Some companies are installing software onto their employee’s laptops and tracking their screens, recording their conversations on chats as well as their browsing history.
Others are using CCTV to check how long staff are away on their lunch break, while some are even tracking their employee’s movements when they leave the office using mobile apps.
Nick Srnicek, a Digital Economy lecturer at King’s College London, told the FT: ‘Workers are not being replaced by algorithms and artificial intelligence.
‘Instead, the management is being sort of augmented by these technologies.’
‘Technologies are increasing the pace for people who work with machines instead of the other way around, just like what happened during the industrial revolution in the 18th century,’ Mr Srnicek said. ‘The same thing is happening today. Humans just have little autonomy over that.’
China hopes to be the world leader in artificial intelligence development by 2030 and won more AI patents than US institutions in 2019.
It isn’t just China making use technology to monitor employees. US e-commerce giant Amazon uses algorithms to rank worker productivity and will fire those who fall at the bottom of the scale.