6 ms·

If a business is paying for this product, then THEY (not you) are the customer. And in that context - yes, Microsoft may be asked or build a product for manager

If a business is paying for this product, then THEY (not you) are the customer. And in that context - yes, Microsoft may be asked or build a product for managers to manage their workforce, particularly if remote. This could involve presence tracking, engagement tracking (ie, do you open alerts / read your bug reports) etc. One approach would be to monitor what management considers productive / successful employees and also on employees who have gone on PIP's - then train the AI on that data set. You'd then be able to drive various alerts to manager and HR dashboards (ie, if a manager was failing to address alerts / manager their team it would be surfaced up a level). Dystopia may be coming indeed. Remember, usually the key issue is not if product is a paid product, but are YOU paying for it. If not - someone else is the revenue source, and Microsoft et al will serve them. Maybe the individual licenses will not have this "management" layer add-on as an option. But I think a very real chance of something like this occurring! If not right now eventually. In Sci-fi this is an inevitability (monitored through a smart watch or something etc).

tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
I really hope that if this happens, DPAs bring the hammer down on everyone involved (both MS and companies using it) in a useful timeframe (i.e. before it has become socially acceptable because "everyone is doing it" and there are no consequences).
- atsaloli 5y ago
  What’s a DPA, please?
  - paulrjones 5y ago
    Data Protection Authority
  - jabo 5y ago
    Data Processing Agreement: https://gdpr.eu/data-processing-agreement/ https://gdpr.eu/data-processing-agreement/
    - atsaloli 5y ago
      Thank you!
  - jbreiding 5y ago
    I believe it's data privacy advocate?
- slownews45 5y ago
  Do you have a right to privacy in the workplace? Back in the day the boss would be right there with you in the store etc and could watch you all the time. Or maybe this will be something that really only shows up in china etc? I think they are a bit further along on some of these types of things.
  - agent327 5y ago
    I prefer to say "they're a bit less developed on some of these types of things". Their attitude is still very much that of the Industrial Revolution, where a worker was no more than a replaceable meat unit with no rights and no expectations of a life of any kind outside of productive work.
- _jal 5y ago
  Everyone is already doing it. Not to engineers yet, but look at Amazon warehouses. These things are always deployed against the least powerful first.
  - hoseja 5y ago
    It's also easiest to implement in the warehouse.
- manigandham 5y ago
  You don't have the same rights to privacy when performing your job for a corporation, and everyone else is already doing it in other industries. Just this week was a big story about how a call center provider (used by Apple and others) was forcing employees to install cameras in their own homes to monitor their remote work: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/big-tech-call-center-workers-face-pressure-accept-home-surveillance-n1276227 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/big-tech-call-center-...
  - tuxguy 5y ago
    woah, this is bonkers !
  - wuschel 5y ago
    I am not sure what is possible in other jurisdictions such as the EU, but I have not seen something like this so far.
    - TeMPOraL 5y ago
      I'm not sure about individual member states, but there was this story in Germany the other day: https://www.zdnet.com/article/gdpr-german-laptop-retailer-fined-eur10-4m-for-video-monitoring-employees/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/gdpr-german-laptop-retailer-fi... €10M fine for keeping employees under video surveillance for no good reason. This is an example showing that there are limits to employee surveillance on-site.
  - crusty 5y ago
    I was just going to mention customer service reps, who traditionally would have worked out of call centers and been subject to restrictions to make it more difficult for them to steal customer data (with the side 'benefit' of micromanaging productivity). With the pandemic, businesses that had considered CS staff they couldn't replace with AI as not sitting for remote were forced to figure out a way, and that way was essentially to replicate many of the security conditions of the call centers in the home, rationalized as a necessity to keep people employed and get through the pandemic. But let's be real, CS has long been a race to the bottom cost segment, often outsourced and run as a computer with a mere human overlay. So it was only a matter of time before management was satisfied that the security risks were mitigated enough to justify the new coat savings. Some big companies have already decided to stick with the home-based support setups they put in place only because of the pandemic. And now to apply the formula elsewhere.
zR0x 5y ago
We can’t create enough material machines for everyone that wants to code to code. If that’s dystopian, wait until you hear about your impending natural death. I can sit by a tree and work on my sci-fi space opera for hours. I feel really sorry for people who are so addicted to technology they think the entire species should surrender its agency to that pipeline. A hardware machine has known operational limits. No amount of delusion about coding and games means it’s anything more than a dopamine buzz (if it can be described as such scientifically as dopamine floods then it is). None of us are resolving or answering questions about reality. We’re just masturbating a chemical delusion. Who knows? Maybe organic machines are even cooler and we can program organic matter via chemical and electrical manipulation. But let’s have another go around writing x86 code. Wow. How clever. There’s a new skin to put on a MySpace clone in one of us somewhere!
er4hn 5y ago
> One approach would be to monitor what management considers productive / successful employees and also on employees who have gone on PIP's - then train the AI on that data set. I look forward to the papers on how to slack off on your job while the AI classifies you as "a straight shooter with upper management written all over him". Possible title: "An adversarial approach to the TwoBobs Productivity Classifier" (/s if this was not clear)
- Terretta 5y ago
  Sadly, not /s. I’ve been pitched the TwoBobs Productivity Classifier. My feedback was anyone who needs it has classified themselves as an unproductive dev manager. I suggested the concept be made available as being by devs, for devs, purposed as a personal coach, with no uplink to the mothership.
  - monsieurbanana 5y ago
    > I suggested the concept be made available as being by devs, for devs, purposed as a personal coach, with no uplink to the mothership. Ah yes, the classic "foot in the door" approach. Despite all the good intentions behind it, it still would end badly.
    - DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
      As long as there's more demand than supply for SWE workers, something like that would never become the norm. All of the dystopic news stories of WFH employees being subject to monitoring are invariably from fungible employees.
      - vbezhenar 5y ago
        I often read on HN that it's a norm for US employers to install spying software on developers computers. I don't see how is it different. I would try to avoid from working in such a companies, because I don't feel secure knowing that someone is spying on me.
rendaw 5y ago
It doesn't matter who is paying for the product. You could pay for the product and they could still add usage terms about monetizing and sharing your personal data.
xfer 5y ago
Not that hard to imagine, it's happening already in their other products[0], it's what the management wants. 0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25198713 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25198713
thayne 5y ago
> but are YOU paying for it. If not - someone else is the revenue source even if you are paying for it, it's quite possible that they also have other revenue sources that conflict with your interests.
- goodrubyist 5y ago
  Exactly, this heuristic doesn't work all (or even most?) of the times. A more accurate approach is to rely on the terms you agree to when you buy/use software (if you don't want to read them, then you can depend on faulty shortcuts instead).
  - thayne 5y ago
    > if you don't want to read them, then you can depend on faulty shortcuts instead Or refuse to use software that requires you to agree to long and confusing terms and conditions.
madeofpalk 5y ago
I think that any workplace that would do this in the future, is already doing similarly toxic things. This isn't an excuse - there's a danger in commodifying and making things like this even easier - but there's already shit workplaces out there with plenty of red flags.

tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago

I really hope that if this happens, DPAs bring the hammer down on everyone involved (both MS and companies using it) in a useful timeframe (i.e. before it has become socially acceptable because "everyone is doing it" and there are no consequences).

atsaloli 5y ago
What’s a DPA, please?
- paulrjones 5y ago
  Data Protection Authority
- jabo 5y ago
  Data Processing Agreement: https://gdpr.eu/data-processing-agreement/ https://gdpr.eu/data-processing-agreement/
  - atsaloli 5y ago
    Thank you!
- jbreiding 5y ago
  I believe it's data privacy advocate?
slownews45 5y ago
Do you have a right to privacy in the workplace? Back in the day the boss would be right there with you in the store etc and could watch you all the time. Or maybe this will be something that really only shows up in china etc? I think they are a bit further along on some of these types of things.
- agent327 5y ago
  I prefer to say "they're a bit less developed on some of these types of things". Their attitude is still very much that of the Industrial Revolution, where a worker was no more than a replaceable meat unit with no rights and no expectations of a life of any kind outside of productive work.
_jal 5y ago
Everyone is already doing it. Not to engineers yet, but look at Amazon warehouses. These things are always deployed against the least powerful first.
- hoseja 5y ago
  It's also easiest to implement in the warehouse.
manigandham 5y ago
You don't have the same rights to privacy when performing your job for a corporation, and everyone else is already doing it in other industries. Just this week was a big story about how a call center provider (used by Apple and others) was forcing employees to install cameras in their own homes to monitor their remote work: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/big-tech-call-center-workers-face-pressure-accept-home-surveillance-n1276227 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/big-tech-call-center-...
- tuxguy 5y ago
  woah, this is bonkers !
- wuschel 5y ago
  I am not sure what is possible in other jurisdictions such as the EU, but I have not seen something like this so far.
  - TeMPOraL 5y ago
    I'm not sure about individual member states, but there was this story in Germany the other day: https://www.zdnet.com/article/gdpr-german-laptop-retailer-fined-eur10-4m-for-video-monitoring-employees/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/gdpr-german-laptop-retailer-fi... €10M fine for keeping employees under video surveillance for no good reason. This is an example showing that there are limits to employee surveillance on-site.
- crusty 5y ago
  I was just going to mention customer service reps, who traditionally would have worked out of call centers and been subject to restrictions to make it more difficult for them to steal customer data (with the side 'benefit' of micromanaging productivity). With the pandemic, businesses that had considered CS staff they couldn't replace with AI as not sitting for remote were forced to figure out a way, and that way was essentially to replicate many of the security conditions of the call centers in the home, rationalized as a necessity to keep people employed and get through the pandemic. But let's be real, CS has long been a race to the bottom cost segment, often outsourced and run as a computer with a mere human overlay. So it was only a matter of time before management was satisfied that the security risks were mitigated enough to justify the new coat savings. Some big companies have already decided to stick with the home-based support setups they put in place only because of the pandemic. And now to apply the formula elsewhere.

zR0x 5y ago

We can’t create enough material machines for everyone that wants to code to code. If that’s dystopian, wait until you hear about your impending natural death. I can sit by a tree and work on my sci-fi space opera for hours. I feel really sorry for people who are so addicted to technology they think the entire species should surrender its agency to that pipeline. A hardware machine has known operational limits. No amount of delusion about coding and games means it’s anything more than a dopamine buzz (if it can be described as such scientifically as dopamine floods then it is). None of us are resolving or answering questions about reality. We’re just masturbating a chemical delusion. Who knows? Maybe organic machines are even cooler and we can program organic matter via chemical and electrical manipulation. But let’s have another go around writing x86 code. Wow. How clever. There’s a new skin to put on a MySpace clone in one of us somewhere!

er4hn 5y ago

> One approach would be to monitor what management considers productive / successful employees and also on employees who have gone on PIP's - then train the AI on that data set. I look forward to the papers on how to slack off on your job while the AI classifies you as "a straight shooter with upper management written all over him". Possible title: "An adversarial approach to the TwoBobs Productivity Classifier" (/s if this was not clear)

Terretta 5y ago
Sadly, not /s. I’ve been pitched the TwoBobs Productivity Classifier. My feedback was anyone who needs it has classified themselves as an unproductive dev manager. I suggested the concept be made available as being by devs, for devs, purposed as a personal coach, with no uplink to the mothership.
- monsieurbanana 5y ago
  > I suggested the concept be made available as being by devs, for devs, purposed as a personal coach, with no uplink to the mothership. Ah yes, the classic "foot in the door" approach. Despite all the good intentions behind it, it still would end badly.
  - DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
    As long as there's more demand than supply for SWE workers, something like that would never become the norm. All of the dystopic news stories of WFH employees being subject to monitoring are invariably from fungible employees.
    - vbezhenar 5y ago
      I often read on HN that it's a norm for US employers to install spying software on developers computers. I don't see how is it different. I would try to avoid from working in such a companies, because I don't feel secure knowing that someone is spying on me.

rendaw 5y ago

It doesn't matter who is paying for the product. You could pay for the product and they could still add usage terms about monetizing and sharing your personal data.

xfer 5y ago

Not that hard to imagine, it's happening already in their other products[0], it's what the management wants. 0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25198713 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25198713

thayne 5y ago

> but are YOU paying for it. If not - someone else is the revenue source even if you are paying for it, it's quite possible that they also have other revenue sources that conflict with your interests.

goodrubyist 5y ago
Exactly, this heuristic doesn't work all (or even most?) of the times. A more accurate approach is to rely on the terms you agree to when you buy/use software (if you don't want to read them, then you can depend on faulty shortcuts instead).
- thayne 5y ago
  > if you don't want to read them, then you can depend on faulty shortcuts instead Or refuse to use software that requires you to agree to long and confusing terms and conditions.

madeofpalk 5y ago

I think that any workplace that would do this in the future, is already doing similarly toxic things. This isn't an excuse - there's a danger in commodifying and making things like this even easier - but there's already shit workplaces out there with plenty of red flags.