EV maker Rivian’s Normal, Illinois factory has racked up 16 preliminary serious violations from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in 21 months, Bloomberg reports. Injuries to employees include a severed finger, vomiting “Rivian Blue” bile after painting without protection, a crack in the skull, and severe back lacerations. The EV maker only operates one factory. However, in a 21-month period, it has racked up more violations than larger automakers like Honda, Volvo, and Ford.
These aren’t the only injuries. There are many other injuries that employees have reportedly never reported. Addison Zwanzig’s case is worth noting, as he was ordered to paint vehicles without a respirator. He suffered vomiting, diarrhea, dizziness, and more within a matter of weeks and vomited the aforementioned blue bile. Only then were he and his co-workers given respirators, having never been given one before.
“The safety of everyone at Rivian is our top priority. We are constantly improving our processes and have not received any serious complaints this year. It is extremely disappointing to see how Bloomberg has misrepresented the facts in this story,” a Rivian spokesperson told Engadget. “It is extremely disappointing to see how Bloomberg has misrepresented the facts in this story. Since January 2023, Rivian has received two serious OSHA complaints. Preliminary complaints should not be confused as final complaints, and it is extremely misleading to suggest the contrary.”
In addition, Rivian told Bloomberg that it provides employees with all necessary safety equipment. Employees can approach supervisors with their concerns or report them anonymously. While Rivian’s safety and procedures have improved since 2021, these recent injuries remain concerning.
Rivian has put its plans to build its R2 SUVs in Georgia on hold, opting instead to build them at its Normal, Illinois plant. Despite these injury reports, the EV maker is still trying to hire more employees. However, pressure from OSHA may force the company to work even harder to protect its workers, especially if the company is hesitant to allow employees to form unions.
While the use of generative AI in games seems almost inevitable, as this medium has always toyed with new ways to make enemies and NPCs smarter and more realistic, watching several NVIDIA ACE demos back to back really gave me stomach pain.
It wasn’t just slightly smarter enemy AI — ACE can create entire conversations out of thin air, simulate voices and try to give NPCs a sense of personality. It’s also doing this locally on your PC, powered by NVIDIA’s RTX GPUs. But while all of this might sound great on paper, I hated nearly every second watching the AI NPCs in action.
TiGames’ ZooPunk is a prime example of this: it relies on NVIDIA ACE to generate dialogue, a virtual voice, and lip syncing for an NPC named Buck. But as you can see in the video above, Buck sounds like a robot with a slightly rustic accent. If he’s supposed to have any relation to the main character, you can’t tell from his performance.
I think my deep dislike of NVIDIA’s ACE-powered AI comes down to this: there’s simply nothing charming about it. No joy, no warmth, no humanity.
Every ACE AI character sounds like a developer cutting corners in the worst way possible, as if you can sense their contempt for the audience as a boring NPC. I’d rather scroll past some on-screen text, at least I don’t have to interact with weird robot voices.
During NVIDIA’s Editor’s Day at CES, a gathering for media to learn more about the new RTX 5000-series GPUs and their related technology, I was also disappointed by a demo of PUBG’s AI Ally. Its responses were similar to what you’d hear from a pre-recorded phone tree.
The ally also failed to find a gun when the player asked, which could have been a fatal mistake in a crowded map. At one point, the PUBG companion spent nearly 15 seconds attacking enemies while the demo player was yelling at him to get in the car. What’s the point of an AI helper if it plays like a novice?