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Welcome to the era of the hyper-surveilled office

economist.com

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Re: Welcome to the era of the hyper-surveilled office

#61

Post by ethbr0 »

raxxorraxor wrote: post #25
bschwindHN wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many Japanese companies have really fucked up ways of measuring "work". They work hard to make these AI and tech-based things to measure some dumb stats that have nothing to do with getting actual work done. I've heard of a company measuring how "well" a meeting went based on some AI analysis of people smiling. So much time here is wasted on managing workers and talking about how to work, instead of just getting shit…

There is an urban legend that being asleep at work would be seen as being productive since you obviously work so hard. This would be my chance to become employee of the month.

Some jackass dean or administration flunky complained about (sleep deprived) students asleep on the couches in Georgia Tech's Klaus CS building. I guess it didn't look good for donors or something.

So they put up a bunch of signs above each couch and bench that said "No sleeping."

I've still got a collection of pictures of people sleeping directly under the signs. Fight the power. :-)

Re: Welcome to the era of the hyper-surveilled office

#62

Post by blueflow »

mschuster91 wrote: post #58
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

^This a thousand times over. The workers' benefits we enjoy today in Europe like 8 hour workdays, minimum 20 days vacation, paid sick leave, free healthcare, pensions, unemployment benefits, etc. were due to the communist movements sweeping Europe after WW2 which governments and industrialists fought hard to suppress so they had to give concessions to the workers in order to keep their business afloat and prevent the…

> But, the collective labor pushback has stopped since the great offshoring took over in the last 30 years thanks to globalization, and various labor unions lost their power Not just that. A large portion of the loss of influence of unions was the riseup of the pacifist dogma. Just look how all the benefits were won: by (sometimes extremely) brutal violence, by the blood of the workers who died by the hands and guns…

Re G20: The people making the mess were young activists, the article even mentions their group affiliation by name. They are not the working class, they are a nuisance to the working class. I'd be in favor of classifying them as terrorists.

Re: Welcome to the era of the hyper-surveilled office

#63

Post by nonrandomstring »

thematrixturtle wrote: post #33
nonrandomstring wrote: post #7

Quoted post unavailable.

Where do you see "celebrating" in the article? Over half of it is devoted to worker pushback against surveillance and criticism of the technology itself, including whether it even works.

The latter third of the article is devoted to push-back. Nonetheless, as all writers understand, bias can be subtle [1]

Let's start with the title.

"Welcome to the era of the hyper-surveilled office"

Does that not lend at least tacit assent by ambivalence, if not outright assent? Welcome?

The next 750 words are given over to normalising the "lot's of valid reasons" to surveil workers, and lending value to an emerging surveillance industry.

Thereafter 450 words describe the counterpoints, but frame this mainly as "dislike" and "feelings". Towards the end, the language does shift to a more humanistic tone, describing "snooping" and the "dangers" of over-zealous monitoring.

Overall though, I found the article lacks mature analysis, presents an "as is" hot take, and spins in favour of employer intrusion on the basis of 19th century industrial justifications.

Given the enormous impact of declining labour relations in an economically precarious era, and the currency of digital rights and surveillance in general, I am surprised The Economist did not attempt a more in-depth treatment of "boss-ware". It would be improved by actual productivity studies, the psychological literature on workplace surveillance, some modern ethical understanding of why this is unacceptable, and what the likely negative impact is going to be on, frankly dumb, companies that see this as legitimate.

Because ultimately, this stuff is bad for business, for everybody's business except a few spyware companies.

[1] Unlike my own polemical theatrics which I enjoy wearing up-front where you can be fully entertained.

Re: Welcome to the era of the hyper-surveilled office

#64

Post by pmoriarty »

emptyparadise wrote: post #4

Feels like every damn thing that happens gets used as a pretext to enable more and more surveillance. Will we need job boards specifically for jobs that don't do surveillance too? >Last year Fujitsu, a Japanese technology group, unveiled AI software which promises to gauge employees’ concentration based on their facial expression. Just need software that punishes employees who aren't happy enough at work, then we'll…

"Will we need job boards specifically for jobs that don't do surveillance too?"

Are there jobs that don't do surveillance?

Seems like every company's jumping in head first.

Re: Welcome to the era of the hyper-surveilled office

#65

Post by totetsu »

I recently had to install chrom'ium' on my work pc, because all the mainstream browsers were auto installing an un-removable tracking extension via some domain policy :(. I'm sure my manager gets some report at the end of the month detailing how many hours I had a news.ycombinator.com tab open

Re: Welcome to the era of the hyper-surveilled office

#66

Post by andrekandre »

bregma wrote: post #40
bschwindHN wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many Japanese companies have really fucked up ways of measuring "work". They work hard to make these AI and tech-based things to measure some dumb stats that have nothing to do with getting actual work done. I've heard of a company measuring how "well" a meeting went based on some AI analysis of people smiling. So much time here is wasted on managing workers and talking about how to work, instead of just getting shit…

The moment a measure becomes a KPI it is not longer a useful KPI.

yep, and people, especially many managers just DO NOT seem to understand that... they look at you like your speaking klingon....

Re: Welcome to the era of the hyper-surveilled office

#67

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

blueflow wrote: post #62
mschuster91 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But, the collective labor pushback has stopped since the great offshoring took over in the last 30 years thanks to globalization, and various labor unions lost their power Not just that. A large portion of the loss of influence of unions was the riseup of the pacifist dogma. Just look how all the benefits were won: by (sometimes extremely) brutal violence, by the blood of the workers who died by the hands and guns…

Re G20: The people making the mess were young activists, the article even mentions their group affiliation by name. They are not the working class, they are a nuisance to the working class. I'd be in favor of classifying them as terrorists.

>I'd be in favor of classifying them as terrorists

Same with Antifa. Some protestors are basically just mindless hooligans and their protests and property damage are harming the small business and working class people a lot more than the politicians and the ruling class.

Like during the protests in France I kept seeing many mid-range Renault/Peugeot/Citroens on fire on the streets of Paris. Chances are those were most likely the cars working class people used to get to work the next day and not the cars of fat-cats.

I agree with protesting violently against governments but what use is destroying working class property?

Re: Welcome to the era of the hyper-surveilled office

#68

Post by andrekandre »

bschwindHN wrote: post #10
emptyparadise wrote: post #4

Feels like every damn thing that happens gets used as a pretext to enable more and more surveillance. Will we need job boards specifically for jobs that don't do surveillance too? >Last year Fujitsu, a Japanese technology group, unveiled AI software which promises to gauge employees’ concentration based on their facial expression. Just need software that punishes employees who aren't happy enough at work, then we'll…

Many Japanese companies have really fucked up ways of measuring "work". They work hard to make these AI and tech-based things to measure some dumb stats that have nothing to do with getting actual work done. I've heard of a company measuring how "well" a meeting went based on some AI analysis of people smiling. So much time here is wasted on managing workers and talking about how to work, instead of just getting shit…

  > I've heard of a company measuring how "well" a meeting went based on some AI analysis of people smiling. So much time here is wasted on managing workers and talking about how to work, instead of just getting shit done.
its ironic because this is what it was like in the soviet union from what i hear...

Re: Welcome to the era of the hyper-surveilled office

#69

Post by pmoriarty »

imranq wrote: post #46
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

^This a thousand times over. The workers' benefits we enjoy today in Europe like 8 hour workdays, minimum 20 days vacation, paid sick leave, free healthcare, pensions, unemployment benefits, etc. were due to the communist movements sweeping Europe after WW2 which governments and industrialists fought hard to suppress so they had to give concessions to the workers in order to keep their business afloat and prevent the…

Is getting a job so competitive? Last I heard there was a labor shortage

"Last I heard there was a labor shortage"

For a counter, see the following article on demand outstripping supply of remote jobs: [1]

In some fields, like tech, there's a strong demand, but not so in plenty of others -- especially if you as a worker make the unreasonable demand to be paid a living wage or not be worked to the point of burnout.

[1] - https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20220421-are-there-enou...

Re: Welcome to the era of the hyper-surveilled office

#70

Post by headsoup »

derwiki wrote: post #5
emptyparadise wrote: post #4

Feels like every damn thing that happens gets used as a pretext to enable more and more surveillance. Will we need job boards specifically for jobs that don't do surveillance too? >Last year Fujitsu, a Japanese technology group, unveiled AI software which promises to gauge employees’ concentration based on their facial expression. Just need software that punishes employees who aren't happy enough at work, then we'll…

> Everything about their employees is monitored and tracked, down to individual finger and eye movements, to prevent waste and track performance. All emails that are sent out include an estimate of how long they should take to read. Go to fast, you get scolded for not paying attention. Go too slow, you get scolded for inefficiency. Get it just right? You get scolded for being a smartass. —- Snowcrash

'The “robot” installed at this first Burger-G restaurant looked nothing like the robots of popular culture. It was not hominid like C-3PO or futuristic like R2-D2 or industrial like an assembly line robot. Instead it was simply a PC sitting in the back corner of the restaurant running a piece of software. The software was called “Manna”, version 1.0*.'
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