Whistleblower Alleges Amazon Retaliated for Exposing AI Secrets About Astro Robot

Sonia Sofer was forced to resign as an Amazon senior program manager after the company began retaliating against her for filing whistleblower reports internally about its data collection practices involving the Astro home robot when the product was in beta testing in 2021, alleged Sofer’s complaint Tuesday (docket 5:24-cv-01515) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Jose. During her employment as a senior program manager, which began in August 2021, Sofer became aware of Amazon’s failure to disclose “the extent, nature and potential uses of data collected and stored by the Astro product to potential public end users of the product,” said her complaint. She also began to suspect the company was doctoring internal and external data about the product's “true performance,” including its retail readiness, it said. Sofer reported her concerns to her superiors about the data that was being collected from beta users without their knowledge or consent that Amazon was using to help train its AI models “to recognize humans and their home environments,” it said. Amazon soon began a series of “adverse employment actions” against Sofer, “constituting illegal and unlawful workplace retaliation,” said her complaint. Among the retributions were “escalated, factually false and unjustified criticisms” of Sofer’s workplace performance, “often in the presence” of one or more of her co-workers, it said. Compounding the attacks were unwanted sexual advances from her direct supervisor, it said. She alleges wrongful workplace retaliation and unlawful sexual harassment under California labor laws.