4 ms·

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

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 positive light, imagine a commercial where they use their technology to discover that an employee was using a broken machine or that there was a bottleneck farther up the assembly line that could improve rates! But no, it was a cold look into how sweatshop operators view their workers.

philistine 2y ago
To top it off, there is an upcoming movie with a lot of buzz called Mickey 17 about the dehumanization of a clone in a dystopic future where humans are replaceable. It's an insidious coincidence. I immediately thought 404 Media were talking about that movie before reading the article.
- water-data-dude 2y ago
  17 is “the least random number”, i.e. the number people choose most often when asked to pick a random number (between 1 and 20) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/17_(number) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/17_(number)
  - knowitnone 2y ago
    according to vertasium 37 is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6iQrh2TK98 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6iQrh2TK98 and he monetized a whole video on it. Edit: his number range is 1-100 instead of 1-20 so different
tqi 2y ago
FWIW, I think people are getting confused because this is framed as a technology story, not a story about the inhumane conditions in sweatshops. I feel like this framing is common in a lot of news stories (big tech being the villain du jour), and is unhelpful because it causes folks who otherwise agree with each other to fixate on the "is technology bad or is it neutral" angle, which gets in the way of any actual agreement or progress.
- Dylan16807 2y ago
  The part that is new is technology making things worse. To me that qualifies as a technology story.
- madeofpalk 2y ago
  No, this framing is exactly right. It highlights how Y Combinator and tech companies are complicit in the inhumane conditions of sweatshops. You don't get to create this product and then absolve yourself of its negative impact of it.
  - tqi 2y ago
    But that's my point - Y Combinator and tech companies are complicit in the inhumane conditions of sweatshops, the how is irrelevant to why it is bad. But framing it as a story about "AI" and "machine vision" just causes people to argue about the technology. [1] Y Combinator supports an AI startup that's pitching granular machine vision surveillance of factory workers.
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      > But framing it as a story about "AI" and "machine vision" just causes people to argue about the technology. It's relevant because this furthers this idea that current early AI technology is not about making the world a better plance and is instead used to accelerate the worst aspects of humanity. Sadly, the abuse of workers is not a novel idea. So the conversation should be more towards how we establish an ethical attitude towards how we make use of LLM's
      - tqi 2y ago
        > It's relevant because this furthers this idea that current early AI technology is not about making the world a better plance and is instead used to accelerate the worst aspects of humanity. Can't it be about both?
minimaxir 2y ago
> This easily could have been spun in a positive light A common trend among techies nowadays is doing marketing themselves as a part of personal branding, and then figuring out why marketing departments exist the hard way. The possibility of unforseen consequences is very high. If I ever create a startup I'll shut down all my social media and hire a community manager first, just to be safe. And I don't plan on creating a dystopian startup.
- some_random 2y ago
  This is exactly the way to do it, although ideally you don't have any in-house marketing and just have an emergency firm on retainer.
silisili 2y ago
Good suggestions. That would have completely reframed it in a more positive light. Even if staying on the 'worker' aspect, if they at least pretended to empathize, asked what's wrong/what they need, etc, could have put a tiny tinge of heartwarming on it. But no, right to insults and presumably firing right after the clip ended. Why would any VC company knowingly go near this with a 10 ft pole?
- wegfawefgawefg 2y ago
  to make money
steve_adams_86 2y ago
One of the things you can infer from this is that these people don't think the workers need to be supported by management. This is one of the most common forms of inefficiency I find, though. Management resents workers so much that they don't enable them to do work properly, due to a bias which leads them to believe their workers should be able to do more with less. A failure to invest in a functional work environment and content workers only leads to lowered productivity in a vicious cycle. In my mind these guys are essentially telling on themselves for being clueless about most of what they're designing the software for. They think they get it, they're super confident, but when it comes down to it they're designing software based around very constrained and biased ideas of how factories should operate. They think they're innovating but they're actually trying to entrench patterns they think work well (but might not at all). Not bringing anything new or interesting, but regurgitated ML patterns other people innovated.
- guy4261 2y ago
  > what they're designing the software for They are designing it to sell. Their potential buyers are sociopaths just like them. These buyers, in turn, will also not benefit from the software, but I do imagine it would sell nicely. SNAFU.
gunian 2y ago
lmao mask off
energy123 2y ago
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.
pjmlp 2y ago
Basically modern slavery, they were missing a whip robot there as well, and maybe a drum playing robot.
- cantrecallmypwd 2y ago
  Yup. Panopticon surveillance. It's near the end stage of technofedualism apart from replacing workers entirely with robots and AI. When all (defacto all/most) of the jobs are optimized away such that no one has skills businesses want, what then? Does Earth become a giant favela ruled by a dozen trillionaires with a tiny supporting bourgeoisie? At some point, the hoarding of money becomes absolutely pointless except to sustain the power and control of the many by a few evil people.
  - pjmlp 2y ago
    That is the very reason I refuse to use any of those self checkouts that are now trending on supermarkets. I am not their employee, neither do I want to contribute to a future where supermarkts turn into depots without any employees other than the folks that at 6 AM discharge their truck with the new supplies. Doesn't matter how long I have to wait on the regular payment queue.
  - bmn__ 2y ago
    > Does Earth become a giant favela ruled by a dozen trillionaires with a tiny supporting bourgeoisie? Yes. SF author imagines it would be more efficient to concentrate the proles of into a small agglomeration of buildings. It's easier for the policebots to keep track of the economically worthless underclass that way, you see. https://marshallbrain.com/manna4#:~:text=terrafoam https://marshallbrain.com/manna4#:~:text=terrafoam Wouldn't you rather have an Earth where all of mankind shares in the fruits of automation of labour and everyone can live a blessed live? Read the last few chapters of the story.
    - ryandrake 2y ago
      We're basically headed towards Elysium but without the cool space station. Just a handful of trillionaires living in opulence, walled off from a few billion commoners building everything for them while living in poverty. Plus a robust police and surveillance state to keep those commoners from making trouble.
thefz 2y ago
> This easily could have been spun in a positive light, Spin all you want, there's no sugarcoating this orwellian aberration
dakial1 2y ago
Or, the guy could be congratulating an employee performing well and discovering a new best practice for the job. Same tech, better value communication to all stakeholders

philistine 2y ago

To top it off, there is an upcoming movie with a lot of buzz called Mickey 17 about the dehumanization of a clone in a dystopic future where humans are replaceable. It's an insidious coincidence. I immediately thought 404 Media were talking about that movie before reading the article.

water-data-dude 2y ago
17 is “the least random number”, i.e. the number people choose most often when asked to pick a random number (between 1 and 20) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/17_(number) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/17_(number)
- knowitnone 2y ago
  according to vertasium 37 is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6iQrh2TK98 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6iQrh2TK98 and he monetized a whole video on it. Edit: his number range is 1-100 instead of 1-20 so different

tqi 2y ago

FWIW, I think people are getting confused because this is framed as a technology story, not a story about the inhumane conditions in sweatshops. I feel like this framing is common in a lot of news stories (big tech being the villain du jour), and is unhelpful because it causes folks who otherwise agree with each other to fixate on the "is technology bad or is it neutral" angle, which gets in the way of any actual agreement or progress.

Dylan16807 2y ago
The part that is new is technology making things worse. To me that qualifies as a technology story.
madeofpalk 2y ago
No, this framing is exactly right. It highlights how Y Combinator and tech companies are complicit in the inhumane conditions of sweatshops. You don't get to create this product and then absolve yourself of its negative impact of it.
- tqi 2y ago
  But that's my point - Y Combinator and tech companies are complicit in the inhumane conditions of sweatshops, the how is irrelevant to why it is bad. But framing it as a story about "AI" and "machine vision" just causes people to argue about the technology. [1] Y Combinator supports an AI startup that's pitching granular machine vision surveillance of factory workers.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    > But framing it as a story about "AI" and "machine vision" just causes people to argue about the technology. It's relevant because this furthers this idea that current early AI technology is not about making the world a better plance and is instead used to accelerate the worst aspects of humanity. Sadly, the abuse of workers is not a novel idea. So the conversation should be more towards how we establish an ethical attitude towards how we make use of LLM's
    - tqi 2y ago
      > It's relevant because this furthers this idea that current early AI technology is not about making the world a better plance and is instead used to accelerate the worst aspects of humanity. Can't it be about both?

minimaxir 2y ago

> This easily could have been spun in a positive light A common trend among techies nowadays is doing marketing themselves as a part of personal branding, and then figuring out why marketing departments exist the hard way. The possibility of unforseen consequences is very high. If I ever create a startup I'll shut down all my social media and hire a community manager first, just to be safe. And I don't plan on creating a dystopian startup.

some_random 2y ago
This is exactly the way to do it, although ideally you don't have any in-house marketing and just have an emergency firm on retainer.

silisili 2y ago

Good suggestions. That would have completely reframed it in a more positive light. Even if staying on the 'worker' aspect, if they at least pretended to empathize, asked what's wrong/what they need, etc, could have put a tiny tinge of heartwarming on it. But no, right to insults and presumably firing right after the clip ended. Why would any VC company knowingly go near this with a 10 ft pole?

wegfawefgawefg 2y ago
to make money

steve_adams_86 2y ago

One of the things you can infer from this is that these people don't think the workers need to be supported by management. This is one of the most common forms of inefficiency I find, though. Management resents workers so much that they don't enable them to do work properly, due to a bias which leads them to believe their workers should be able to do more with less. A failure to invest in a functional work environment and content workers only leads to lowered productivity in a vicious cycle. In my mind these guys are essentially telling on themselves for being clueless about most of what they're designing the software for. They think they get it, they're super confident, but when it comes down to it they're designing software based around very constrained and biased ideas of how factories should operate. They think they're innovating but they're actually trying to entrench patterns they think work well (but might not at all). Not bringing anything new or interesting, but regurgitated ML patterns other people innovated.

guy4261 2y ago
> what they're designing the software for They are designing it to sell. Their potential buyers are sociopaths just like them. These buyers, in turn, will also not benefit from the software, but I do imagine it would sell nicely. SNAFU.

gunian 2y ago

lmao mask off

energy123 2y ago

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.

pjmlp 2y ago

Basically modern slavery, they were missing a whip robot there as well, and maybe a drum playing robot.

cantrecallmypwd 2y ago
Yup. Panopticon surveillance. It's near the end stage of technofedualism apart from replacing workers entirely with robots and AI. When all (defacto all/most) of the jobs are optimized away such that no one has skills businesses want, what then? Does Earth become a giant favela ruled by a dozen trillionaires with a tiny supporting bourgeoisie? At some point, the hoarding of money becomes absolutely pointless except to sustain the power and control of the many by a few evil people.
- pjmlp 2y ago
  That is the very reason I refuse to use any of those self checkouts that are now trending on supermarkets. I am not their employee, neither do I want to contribute to a future where supermarkts turn into depots without any employees other than the folks that at 6 AM discharge their truck with the new supplies. Doesn't matter how long I have to wait on the regular payment queue.
- bmn__ 2y ago
  > Does Earth become a giant favela ruled by a dozen trillionaires with a tiny supporting bourgeoisie? Yes. SF author imagines it would be more efficient to concentrate the proles of into a small agglomeration of buildings. It's easier for the policebots to keep track of the economically worthless underclass that way, you see. https://marshallbrain.com/manna4#:~:text=terrafoam https://marshallbrain.com/manna4#:~:text=terrafoam Wouldn't you rather have an Earth where all of mankind shares in the fruits of automation of labour and everyone can live a blessed live? Read the last few chapters of the story.
  - ryandrake 2y ago
    We're basically headed towards Elysium but without the cool space station. Just a handful of trillionaires living in opulence, walled off from a few billion commoners building everything for them while living in poverty. Plus a robust police and surveillance state to keep those commoners from making trouble.

thefz 2y ago

> This easily could have been spun in a positive light, Spin all you want, there's no sugarcoating this orwellian aberration

dakial1 2y ago

Or, the guy could be congratulating an employee performing well and discovering a new best practice for the job. Same tech, better value communication to all stakeholders