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Tell HN: Y Combinator backing AI company to abuse factory workers

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Tell HN: Y Combinator backing AI company to abuse factory workers

#11

Post by flyinglizard »

2099miles wrote: post #7
oulipo wrote: post #3

This kind of product is really shameful, and peak capitalism... looking at people as mere robots to serve your, disgusting

Peak capitalism would have the employees holding their own value and not being crushed in trash power dynamics to allow this kind of stuff. Capitalism is about nonviolent voluntary exchanges between two parties, when one party has a power dynamic skewed in such a way they can use tools like this that employees hate, then that’s not capitalism anymore.

That's approaching "real communism has never been tried".

Re: Tell HN: Y Combinator backing AI company to abuse factory workers

#12

Post by cced »

metacritic12 wrote: post #8

Yeah it has terrible optics, yet it's clearly going to be normalized and come. The question is who does it and what is the organization of it. If this company doesn't do it, the next will. In certain roles, AI micromanagement clearly will create higher performance. Add the marketplace of capitalism and it'll all compete away. There are certain roles, like artists, where this is the wrong solution wholly: monitoring w…

> Yeah it has terrible optics, yet it's clearly going to be normalized and come. The question is who does it and what is the organization of it. If this company doesn't do it, the next will.

Where have we seen this before..

Re: Tell HN: Y Combinator backing AI company to abuse factory workers

#13

Post by 2099miles »

2099miles wrote: post #10

Tbh this isn’t that crazy. If you hire someone to do their job outputting 10 items per hour and that number is reasonable because a bunch of other workers you hired for the same job are doing it and 1 guy hits 1 per hour then that guys shouldn’t be doing that job. The outrage should be focused on the absolute meme of their ad video cuz they were like “lets literally have a convo with an individual but refer to them a…

Continued rant :

It’s kinda like a ruler. If you measure workers so that one’s doing 10x less/worse output than the average that’s good.

If you compare workers down to the .01% difference in output that’s stupid and inhumane.

Re: Tell HN: Y Combinator backing AI company to abuse factory workers

#16

Post by ignoramous »

2099miles wrote: post #10

Tbh this isn’t that crazy. If you hire someone to do their job outputting 10 items per hour and that number is reasonable because a bunch of other workers you hired for the same job are doing it and 1 guy hits 1 per hour then that guys shouldn’t be doing that job. The outrage should be focused on the absolute meme of their ad video cuz they were like “lets literally have a convo with an individual but refer to them a…

> Tbh this isn’t that crazy.

Yep, seems like a bog standard accountability / performance management.

> The product is not crazy. The video is wild.

This is how it all starts. Sane solutions wielded by madmen.

Re: Tell HN: Y Combinator backing AI company to abuse factory workers

#18

Post by Suzuran »

oulipo wrote: post #3

This kind of product is really shameful, and peak capitalism... looking at people as mere robots to serve your, disgusting

Nobody looks at people as robots. Robots are cheaper, do not require food or sleep, and do not have to be murdered when they attempt to unionize.

Robots are far superior.

Re: Tell HN: Y Combinator backing AI company to abuse factory workers

#20

Post by Imustaskforhelp »

2099miles wrote: post #7
oulipo wrote: post #3

This kind of product is really shameful, and peak capitalism... looking at people as mere robots to serve your, disgusting

Peak capitalism would have the employees holding their own value and not being crushed in trash power dynamics to allow this kind of stuff. Capitalism is about nonviolent voluntary exchanges between two parties, when one party has a power dynamic skewed in such a way they can use tools like this that employees hate, then that’s not capitalism anymore.

so this is more like peak feudalism huh?

back to 1800's I suppose.

There is no seperation b/w private entities , the state and the church , all trying to exploit the middle class / lower class was one of the gists that I think when I recall feudalism sounds familiar ? Guess what ? We are living at one right now.

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