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I disapprove of this application (knowing how these things will be used), but I hesitate to condemn whomever worked on it, without knowing more. A few backgrou

by neilv 2y ago

I disapprove of this application (knowing how these things will be used), but I hesitate to condemn whomever worked on it, without knowing more. A few background thoughts... I remember browsing angel.co, and most of the startup blurbs were just depressing -- either crypto scams, or people who sounded unaware that they were doing something bad for society. Many worse-sounding than this one. So depressing, that even LinkedIn was a more pleasant place to be scrolling job listings. But there can't be that many sociopaths, as it appeared there were on angel.co; they're probably mostly just people with not much world experience, and perhaps too much techbro echo chamber time, now going through the motions they were taught about how to be a startup founder. Also, there's modes based on context, and I'll embarrass myself here... I remember during the dotcom gold rush, when I'd already had wholesome values instilled in me, plus the usual Internet-before-it-went-corporate values, yet I found on occasion I got distracted from those, in a mode. I was a grad student with a research assistantship, in a lab that had sponsors and VIPs coming through every day. I recall one time some people from a particular huge music industry company came through. So, I start telling them something about the emerging democratization of creation and distribution of high-quality music... and how I thought their company can get ahead of that. Afterwards, I was, like, why did I go out of my way to do that, like an amoral hired gun? On any other day, I'd be trying to help people to be empowered, and encourage them to get rid of that same company. Going back to this particular application domain, another thought... If you've worked with factory people, at least the ones I did (in a startup introducing a new factory station) were delightful, and I can't imagine imposing this system on people there. Maybe that's another reason to know your customers and users: not only understanding the problem domain and getting the MVP right, but also to engage our natural human empathy and caring.

some_random 2y ago
I understand where you're coming from but that demo video makes it very, very clear that the founders knew exactly how it was going to be used and explicitly approved. It is completely unambiguous that they have zero regard for natural human empathy and caring, and view slow factory workers as worthy of humiliation and punishment.
- neilv 2y ago
  I actually assume that this tech will almost immediately be used worse than in the video skit. If anything, I think they're unaware or sugar-coating it, but not doing a great PR job of that for US audiences.
  - some_random 2y ago
    I don't understand how you could come to that conclusion, they are referring to a sweatshop employee by a number and humiliating him for bad performance to the audience. How much more explicit would their demo have to be in order for you to believe they understand how their tech will be used? Edit: They know exactly what they are doing https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43175023#43176516 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43175023#43176516
    - neilv 2y ago
      I don't mean to disagree with you. I have my own snap judgments, but trying to temper them at the moment. When I commented, I thought there was already more than enough people piling on to condemn, so I thought I should take a deep breath, and make some complementary points. (Though, one of my snap judgments is that this is probably worse than they realize, over 0.6 probability, unless they're far into their sales meetings, or have a lot of world experience. The impression in the video is that they're imagining a class-based dynamic, with someone from a lower class than them being a lazy and unmotivated problem worker, and how they think is culturally appropriate to interact. That might actually be what they envision. But we have enough analogous examples, for decades, to assume that many customers will use it even worse. And with interaction flavors that are more culturally familiar and recognizable to us in the US.) Edit: I didn't see your edit link when I responded. Yes, I think that link fits my first impression. I'll stand by my position that the condemning comments have been done enough, and that some other nuance and alternate interpretations might apply, and are worth mentioning, for this case and in general.
      - some_random 2y ago

by neilv 2y ago

some_random 2y ago

I understand where you're coming from but that demo video makes it very, very clear that the founders knew exactly how it was going to be used and explicitly approved. It is completely unambiguous that they have zero regard for natural human empathy and caring, and view slow factory workers as worthy of humiliation and punishment.

neilv 2y ago
I actually assume that this tech will almost immediately be used worse than in the video skit. If anything, I think they're unaware or sugar-coating it, but not doing a great PR job of that for US audiences.
- some_random 2y ago
  I don't understand how you could come to that conclusion, they are referring to a sweatshop employee by a number and humiliating him for bad performance to the audience. How much more explicit would their demo have to be in order for you to believe they understand how their tech will be used? Edit: They know exactly what they are doing https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43175023#43176516 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43175023#43176516
  - neilv 2y ago
    I don't mean to disagree with you. I have my own snap judgments, but trying to temper them at the moment. When I commented, I thought there was already more than enough people piling on to condemn, so I thought I should take a deep breath, and make some complementary points. (Though, one of my snap judgments is that this is probably worse than they realize, over 0.6 probability, unless they're far into their sales meetings, or have a lot of world experience. The impression in the video is that they're imagining a class-based dynamic, with someone from a lower class than them being a lazy and unmotivated problem worker, and how they think is culturally appropriate to interact. That might actually be what they envision. But we have enough analogous examples, for decades, to assume that many customers will use it even worse. And with interaction flavors that are more culturally familiar and recognizable to us in the US.) Edit: I didn't see your edit link when I responded. Yes, I think that link fits my first impression. I'll stand by my position that the condemning comments have been done enough, and that some other nuance and alternate interpretations might apply, and are worth mentioning, for this case and in general.
    - some_random 2y ago