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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

#31

Post by simonbarker87 »

I used to run a small factory (two assembly lines 10 people) and something like this would have been useful, not to force people to work harder but to optimise movements and points of friction. I would actively encourage and reward people for making suggestions and we had a process in place to test if changes made things better (and not just faster - we included easier, simpler, more enjoyable etc in the test)

Sadly it’s not about the tool in this case, it’s how it’s being promoted and positioned. The line “know who’s working and who’s not” on their website says it all sadly.

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

#32

Post by hehbot »

flyinglizard wrote: post #11
2099miles wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

apologists everywhere are all the same

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

#33

Post by trunch »

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…

Because this will definitely be used only to innocently tell off people doing 1/10 the work of everyone else, and not micromanage and hound people to increasingly unrealistic standards in already desperate conditions.

Safe to say you aren't in any position where every move you make will be watched by AI and analysed for faults so that your boss can scream at you more efficiently whenever you don't meet standards for their pitiful wages.

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

#34

Post by LinuxBender »

Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #25
Suzuran wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But then if everyone is out of their job and unemployed ? who will buy the stuff if noone has the money. I think there is a balance. Otherwise its going to be 1984 in more than one way (the spying part is already there) (it would also do of that the countries are ready to produce things as much but they won't and limit it to create that constant mood of war to make people not question them / make them weak.) I think…

CGP Grey did a video on this topic about 10 years ago. Curious if the video aged well. [1]

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU [video][15 mins][Humans Need Not Apply]

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

#36

Post by fvdessen »

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…

Shouldn't the manager of the 'bunch of workers' notice the guy is underperforming and understand why ? Maybe that manager is the one that shouldn't be doing that job

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

#37

Post by solumos »

Is it dystopian, or is it just real-time performance monitoring poorly marketed by inexperienced founders?

There are tools like this for tracking git commits and velocity (that I’ve been on the receiving end of). It probably makes less sense in that context, but if your job is a repetitive task, I don’t think it’s necessarily abuse or dystopian to track it.

Monitoring bottlenecks isn’t a bad thing. They probably could have chosen an example where the solution to the bottleneck didn’t involve berating a low performer (e.g. adjusting the line to add another station or similar)

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

#38

Post by acc_297 »

> Boost your assembly line efficiency by up to 30%

Ethics of this aside the above claim must be dubious I would think the majority of manufacturing inefficiencies are due to down time as a result of raw material shipping delays or machine break down… of course I’m in no position to offer an informed opinion but just based on the product website I have a hard time taking this stuff seriously.

Monitoring of factory workers isn’t hard to do with current surveillance and 1 or 2 humans in the loop

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

#39

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

dauertewigkeit wrote: post #5

I find the marketing interesting considering that this product already exists in other continents ... and it is NOT deployed in factories. It is deployed in office settings. If this our future? Lots of video evidence: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=+Using+AI+to+mo... Expect dishonest marketing by those aspiring to build these surveillance and anti-freedom systems in our western countries.

Why not deploy it across every moment of everyone's life, with algorithmic prediction of economically unproductive deviance and BadThink?

Maybe I'll pitch that to someone with money.

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

#40

Post by friendly_chap »

That post was pulled partly because of my comment. I commented this:

"While I see the economical usefullness, this sounds like the worst possible application of AI.

Using AI to surveil is building hell on earth. AI should be used to help people work less/easier, not whip them into working more."

Which ended up on the top of the thread. Was surprised to wake up this morning and see it gone.

LinkedIn post I made about this:

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/crufter_today-y-combinator-de...

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