Abrdn revolts against Amazon over the risks of AI

One of Britain’s biggest fund managers, Abrdn, is demanding that Amazon toughens up monitoring of its use of AI in the latest sign of investors’ concerns over how Silicon Valley giants are handling the new technology.

Abrdn, which has previously called for Apple to take its responsibilities with AI more seriously, owns a stake of about £1 billion in Amazon. It is calling on the company to set up a committee of independent directors to deal with the impact of its AI usage on human rights.

Abrdn is concerned about the implications for its investment of potential future scandals or oversights at Amazon, whose Alexa voice assistant was previously reported to have falsely claimed the US presidential election in 2020 was “stolen” from Donald Trump.

Abrdn is voting for the establishment of such a committee at Wednesday’s annual shareholder meeting. The management of Amazon opposes the motion, which warns that “AI-driven misinformation and disinformation can undermine democracy and distort election outcomes”.

As well as citing the incident with Alexa, the motion points to reports that, in the current presidential campaign, Republican candidates have used deepfake images to attack each other.

Tabled by the American union federation AFL-CIO, the resolution also raises the possibility that AI can cause “unlawful employment discrimination” and pointed to reports in 2018 that Amazon had scrapped an AI tool that picked male candidates over female ones.

Stuart Riddick, senior sustainability manager at Abrdn, said it was crucial for companies with exposure to AI to be transparent about its use. “This can help us encourage change and play a part in fostering an AI-enabled future that delivers sustainable benefits for shareholders and other stakeholders,” he said.

Amazon argued that it would be more effective for it to deal with AI-related issues through its existing boardroom committees.

The vote is being held amid mounting concerns about the lack of AI protections ahead of a global safety summit in South Korea this week. The Times reported that a panel of 75 experts from 30 countries warned that the developers building AI systems did not fully understand how they operate.

At the Amazon annual meeting, Abrdn is also supporting a resolution calling for an independent review of its approach to workers’ rights to join unions. The resolution states that US courts have found that Amazon has violated labour laws and that profitability can ultimately be boosted if employee relations are improved.

Riddick said he recognised that Amazon was taking steps to improve the situation, but there was still more to be done.

Abrdn is also backing another resolution calling for a review of workers’ rights in warehouses amid reports of a “mounting injury crisis” at Amazon sites. Amazon said its existing approach was sufficient and insisted its injury rate was not higher than the industry average.

Edinburgh-based Abrdn manages almost £500 billion of assets and employs about 5,000 people.

Amazon’s new London leases

Amazon has signed leases on two new office buildings within walking distance of its UK headquarters in Shoreditch, east London.

The tech giant has agreed to take the entirety of the office space at The Stage, an £800 million mixed-use development on the site where Romeo and Juliet was first performed.

Amazon expects to occupy the new buildings, which span close to 200,000 sq ft of office space, from the second half of next year. Amazon employees currently based at a WeWork building in the City will relocate to the new permanent workspace.

The leasing deal provides further evidence of resilient demand for high-quality office space, even as the wider market comes under sustained pressure from higher interest rates. Mark Allan, the chief executive of Land Securities, which owns commercial property worth billions of pounds, said there had been a sustained increase in office attendance at the best quality workplaces.