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'Hey Number 17 '

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Re: 'Hey Number 17 '

#131

Post by arp242 »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #65

Here is a painful truth that I would venture that 95%+ of people don't know. In fact when I learned it, removing this small block of knowledge from my head toppled an entire ideological castle I had lived in until that point. Low wage labor is not very valuable at all, and has very low margins on it. The gap between "profitable worker" and "unprofitable worker" is the absolute smallest at the bottom. These workers ke…

I'm sure that's true for some industries and businesses, but obviously not true for all. Lots of very profitable companies employ low wage labourers (either directly, or as is often the case, indirectly). Nike had $5.7 billion net income.

But even if everything you say is true, we can still refer to these people as something slightly more humanizing than "number 17", and generally treat with a basic minimum of respect ("are you okay, work seems to have slower down" rather than immediately jumping to bollocking mode).

Productivity monitoring for factory workers is nothing new, or even controversial as such, but having a camera pointed directly at your face all day that your supervisors can monitor is pretty invasive (never mind that this is just the "bum on seat" type of "productivity").

Re: 'Hey Number 17 '

#132

Post by laidoffamazon »

ryandrake wrote: post #96
darkwater wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What kind of bubble are the founders living in? The article points this out: both come from families owning sweatshop^W factories, so that's the bubble. They probably were applauded by their fathers for the good idea and execution.

But they at least went through a slightly-diverse undergrad university (Duke) and hopefully didn't spend it insulated from different kinds of people. Out of the thousands of students there, all of their friends happened to also be sweatshop heirs? I guess I just don't understand how someone, who's not royalty, can become a grown ass adult, never having had made friends with or developed at least some kind of empathy…

> slightly-diverse undergrad university (Duke)

These are exactly the types of people that go to Duke

Re: 'Hey Number 17 '

#133

Post by sham1 »

gowld wrote: post #100
some_random wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In much of the world, working slowly as "number 17" was is viewed as a personal moral failing. Just as you might view a rude manager being chewed out as just, the founders here and their circle view the humiliation of this factory worker as correct and good.

"a personal moral failing" of the worker who is being exploited, of course. Not the exploiter watching the worker.

Of course the exploiter doesn't have the moral failing in this. After all, the capitalist must profit as they can, and the proletariat suffer what they must. /s

Not to go too much into an ideological diatribe about class solidarity and such, I do wish that in light of cases like these, we as tech workers would reflect on the "worker" part and not get totally blinded from the exploitation of less fortunate people in different field. Consider me slightly cynical, though.

Re: 'Hey Number 17 '

#134

Post by disqard »

yapyap wrote: post #108
ryandrake wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the creators read this, they should understand that they are potentially inventing the shackles that they themselves will be bound in (albeit later). I think a lot of techies are under the mistaken impression that when they're done building the society of Elysium , for some reason the billionaires are going to take them along to the space station to live with them.

My theory is that the people working on it think they’ll get to a financial ‘class’ high enough in the process of working on tech. Be that over the course of how many decades. That they’ll be up there among them in the space station. Either that or they’re not thinking about the future at all and just doing it for the near instant gratification of a high salary.

> they’re not thinking about the future at all

IMO, this is more likely.

Speculation on my part, but this evinces the kind of tech-focused education that I personally know to be pervasive in India. The curriculum omits any "history of technology" or "ethics in innovation", so at best, these founders are missing a core part of "humanistic" learning.

At worst... well, why go there? They're from privileged backgrounds, and mere ignorance is enough to explain this kind of short-sighted "innovation", without adding malice into the mix.

Re: 'Hey Number 17 '

#135

Post by energy123 »

some_random wrote: post #38

I'm shocked that anyone here is confused as to why this is controversial, to use a popular twitter phrase they were completely "mask off" on what they intended their tech to be used for. The demo was for a garment manufacturing sweatshop in which they identified a slow employee, called him by a number, and humiliated him, stopping just short of recommending a "corrective action". This easily could have been spun in a…

Why is so much attention being given to the spin they put on it, rather than the underlying technology (24/7 monitoring) which causes hypervigilance, alienation from work, chronic stress, fear, paranoia, and all the consequential negative health impacts? I don't care if the company spins it in a good or bad way, the spin is completely irrelevant.

Re: 'Hey Number 17 '

#136

Post by fragmede »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #124
fragmede wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stark reality of capitalism is that it's a business transaction. If they can't make enough profit from the sweatshop to make a profit, why would they keep the factory running? They're not running a charity, so they will just close that factory and open it somewhere else with cheaper labor due to lax labor laws. If X > Y, where X is the cost to operate the factory and Y is the money made from selling the goods fro…

> If they can't make enough profit from the sweatshop to make a profit, why would they keep the factory running? Various reasons. It's not like life is as simple as "make profit -> operate". >They're not running a charity, so they will just close that factory and open it somewhere else with cheaper labor due to lax labor laws. Okay, and we as a first world country should refuse to work with inhumane companies. If tha…

The difference in price between a flight on Frontier or Spirit, and someone else, or the price between a flight on United in economy vs premium, says that they have worked out a price on basic respect. The fact that people keep giving money to Spirit and Frontier say it's a tradeoff people are willing to make.

They can choose not to treat people like crap, but I don't know about you, but when I go to the store, and the thing I want is made in China for $20 or not for $30, I have a hard time wanting to choose the $30 one over the cheaper one, and factory owners know this.

Re: 'Hey Number 17 '

#137

Post by miles »

jrussino wrote: post #81
krunck wrote: post #61

"Optifye.ai, launched by Duke University computer science students Baid and Mohta, is backed by Y Combinator, according to the company’s site. On their Y Combinator company profile, they write that both of their families run manufacturing plants, where they’ve been exposed to factory working conditions since they were children. “I've been around assembly lines for as long as I can remember,” Baid wrote. Mohta wrote,…

> It's their turn to sit in the factory for 12 hour a day, 5+ days a week and have AI assisted asses badgering them all day. I'm reminded of this famous Jefferson quote: "I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give…

> ...life gets framed as a ladder or a hill you have to climb, and your position feels so very precarious - no matter where you start or how high you climb!

Reminded of this line from chapter 13 of Mitchell's freehand Tao Te Ching translation[1]:

Whether you go up the ladder or down it, you position is shaky.

[1] https://ttc.tasuki.org/display:Code:sm/section:13

Re: 'Hey Number 17 '

#138

Post by Aveng1991 »

theamk wrote: post #44
Etheryte wrote: post #15

This is exactly why we need regulations that prohibit this. The upcoming EU regulations [0] seem to at least partially cover this, as employment is one of the high risk categories for AI systems. What that means in detail is still to be seen, but at least the groundwork is already there. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43152937

Will those regulations help with non-AI version of the same? If you want plot a worker's performance graphs (and fire them for underperformance), you don't need any AI or vision or even a computer, just a supervisor who manually counts the workers' outputs. "Hey number 17, how come you made only has 10 boxes this morning, while number 16's has made 25 boxes already. Work harder!" Unlike AI stuff, it will only be dail…

This form or efficiency enforcement is already a wildly practiced method in apparel manufacturing. What you need is a performance metric form and a pen and one supervisor to monitor the unit. Additionally a white board in public display with each worker’s hourly output also works.

A better method of efficiency is also commonly practiced by some factories, which is to pay per unit. This practice ties the earning to the output and is far more efficient. Workers do feel in control and can earn 3X - 4X if they were on monthly salary. However this method is skill oriented and many not be practical all the time, plus it can be a little costly.

The assembly line method is a cheaper alternative, since it forfeits the need for every workers to be equally skilled. The downside to this method is that inefficiency can easily creep in.

Re: 'Hey Number 17 '

#139

Post by [deleted] »

47282847 wrote: post #103
jrussino wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's their turn to sit in the factory for 12 hour a day, 5+ days a week and have AI assisted asses badgering them all day. I'm reminded of this famous Jefferson quote: "I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give…

I read the Jefferson quote and his “I“ as part of society that gradually improve(s/d) to a point where people are given the chance to study what their passion is for passions sake - which is an end goal, where it can stop. Not as an individual family growth ladder that needs repetition. As an “if we all work together we can achieve this paradise within three generations from where we are“.

[deleted]

Re: 'Hey Number 17 '

#140

Post by johnnyanmac »

fragmede wrote: post #136
johnnyanmac wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they can't make enough profit from the sweatshop to make a profit, why would they keep the factory running? Various reasons. It's not like life is as simple as "make profit -> operate". >They're not running a charity, so they will just close that factory and open it somewhere else with cheaper labor due to lax labor laws. Okay, and we as a first world country should refuse to work with inhumane companies. If tha…

The difference in price between a flight on Frontier or Spirit, and someone else, or the price between a flight on United in economy vs premium, says that they have worked out a price on basic respect. The fact that people keep giving money to Spirit and Frontier say it's a tradeoff people are willing to make. They can choose not to treat people like crap, but I don't know about you, but when I go to the store, and t…

Yes, I am. More conscious about what and who I buy. I don't have perfect information, but I do try to avoid blatantly evil brands. $10 more on my groceries doesn't matter at this point ins life when everything's getting more expensive and worse quality.

I'm not in the best financial situation, but it is one of my missions to try and fight back against this long term. I won't let Apathy erode away at me as well.

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