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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

#41

Post by bayindirh »

philipjoubert wrote: post #35

As someone who grew up in a 3rd world country and whose mother owned a clothing factory, this product seems...fine? The response is an indication of how little people know about how their t-shirts and shoes are made.

It's nuanced. If it allows you to find outliers (low performers to manage and high performers to praise), that's fine. If you try to push everyone further and further to their breaking point and make them trade the same amount of money for more of their time and more importantly health, it's certainly not fine.

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

#42

Post by black_puppydog »

solumos wrote: post #37

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 coul…

You mean if they marketed it differently, managers would magically stop using it exactly the way it was advertised?

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

#43

Post by hnthrow90348765 »

fvdessen wrote: post #36
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

And they do that by either looking over your shoulder (1 person at a time) or collecting metrics on the entire team and the output. Both of these have different downsides.

The biggest issue is leadership or managers always wanting the number to go up from the individual. "We need 12 widgets per hour instead of 10 for just this one quarter bro" but then that becomes the new norm and eventually "We need 14/16/18/20 widgets per hour..."

It's boiling frog management that makes people distrust managers doing any kind of performance monitoring

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

#44

Post by baq »

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…

> But then if everyone is out of their job and unemployed ? who will buy the stuff if noone has the money.

Last time I tried to say something like that I got plenty comments calling me for reading too many sci-fi books... I guess some people just lack imagination and experience with exponentials.

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

#45

Post by yogurt-male »

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.

Funny that what you describe will never exist without heavy (extreme?) regulation and progressive taxation, which are anathema to most advocates of capitalism. Have you considered that maybe your definition of capitalism doesn't agree with the definition society has agreed upon?

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

#46

Post by seper8 »

danpalmer wrote: post #26

This sort of performance management is unfortunately necessary. The problem is that we need tools for it to be built by people who can empathise with those subjected to them, and who want to do the right thing, and not these sorts of folks who are too immature and inexperienced to get it right. My previous company ran a warehouse and there was a clear bell curve of productivity. Most people were fine, some were excel…

Necessary according to who?

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

#47

Post by kissgyorgy »

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…

It's clear you never worked in a factory and you have just as much empathy as these CS grads. This kind of thinking why I hate capitalism so much.

I worked in a factory multiple times and I can tell from experience nobody needs a stupid performance measurement like this. Your manager will make sure you work you ass off. Or you work with a big dangerous machine so you have to pay very much attention all day. Of course not every factory is the same, but putting even more pressure to factory workers like this is just inhumane and the most capitalist move I can imagine. Next step is to put robotic whips next to the lines and when their productivity goes below a specific value hit them automatically... Literal slavery.

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

#48

Post by froh »

fvdessen wrote: post #36
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

yah this is exactly what labor law says in some countries: a manager standing behind your desk? ok. a machine surveilling you? not ok.

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

#49

Post by yogurt-male »

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…

Looking for 10x discrepancies is not how this will be used, and you know it. Adoption of this sort of tech is going to lead to Amazon "peeing in bottles" situations. It's wild how much faith people have in the ethics of business owners, especially the ultra-wealthy.

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

#50

Post by pera »

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…

Your example sounds reasonable but it's not realistic: The actual use of this type of tools is to intimidate those workers who have outputted 9.8 items instead of the average 9.9 over the past week.

This is how our society ended up making Amazon delivery workers urinating in fucking bottles inside their trucks.

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