Ha! The sweatshop for startups has finally produced a startup that wants to help sweatshops grind their workers into dust. The circle is finally complete!
The circle will complete when the co-op spaces install this new system so startup founders can watch their employees. And then the circle will make another loop and VCs can watch the startup founders.
AI enforced slavery. I remember reading a short story where workers get instructions from an AI constantly after starting out as work assistance. Don't remember the details.
RIP Marshall Brain. He was a great man. And quite befitting the peculiar name.
It really makes me think. Honestly the Manna system has only just since the LLM discovery been possible, whereas it seemed a bit farfetched to me 15 years ago when I first read it. It would be pretty easy to roll today’s “AI” into a product to replace fast food managers like in that story.
Which is different from chattel slavery, of course. But it's still an extant theory that gets discussed widely. It would seem an AI company to be a labor panopticon would align with the critiques raised by the concept of wage slavery.
Another example of terms being appropriated like that would be how "piracy" now refers to copying information your aren't legally permitted to copy, as well as the older meaning of using violence to steal things at sea.
Another one is nemesis, which now refers to a long standing enemy, as well as the older meaning of a Greek goddess of vengeance.
Don't imply or wink and nudge. Say what you mean to say. Your example is either a non sequiter like mine, or it's implying something while avoiding saying the actual thing you are trying to convey.
Its important to raise awareness of the forms of modern slavery [1] and while comparing employee-surveillance software to slavery may seem hyperbolic, we who build these tools are culpable to their impact on the world and what they might lead to next.
Slaves didn't have freedom to move jobs or to have agency in their lives. At the base level, let alone all the abuses they faced which varied in places and times throughout history.
But a lot of these workers don't have some things that even slaves had. Like room and board.
There is nothing AI about that demo though? It is just humans talking on the phone looking at an mvp dashboard of basic productivity metrics. In serious logistics/ manufacturing better stuff than this is already in place.
Even "Taylorism" wasn't this bad...it at least tried to analyze conditions that were constraining worker productivity. This just measures output and manages by pressure and belittlement.
Not even that. Measuring output makes a certain amount of sense. This just measures "looking busy". It's practically an admission that they don't care about actual production, they just enjoy hassling people.
When market conditions give you a glut of "qualified" labor you can afford these practices.
Then again these are precisely the types of "poverty studies" that have been done in India for years. "Should we fine nurses who are late to work? If so, how much?" "Should web publicly shame and harass office workers who leave early? If so, how much?" Lookin' at you, "Poverty Action Lab."
This looks like the logical extension to what we've been putting this country through for years.
Actual manufacturing engineers are expensive and tell you things that you don't want to hear/require work and long term thinking on management's part. Yelling at/blaming employees is instant gratification.
This is like when I worked at UPS loading trucks over the summer and they recorded how many packages I scanned in 15 minute intervals and I was slower than they wanted. It sucked.
Anyone who would fund or build this is, in my mind, taxonomically evil. Maybe not irretrievably so, but YC would need to do a lot of work in my mind to not be "that form that believes the panopticon and dehumanization is good."
This isn't just run of the mill capitalism bad, this is truly exceptionally vile and staining.
Probably depends what the pitch was. "Monitor assembly lines using AI so you can tell when a machine breaks" is radically different from "constantly snitch on all your factory workers".
Wondering is just a visceral reaction to the possible harms that come with all technologies. As with most gut feelings, it’ll soon be forgotten once that cool new shiny doohickey is announced, with a price point of $599.
It’s to pull eyeballs for jobs at YC portfolio companies and to attempt to convince founders to apply to batches. It is their marketing and talent sourcing. It is, arguably, the most valuable contributor of forward looking potential returns (considering most VC investment decisions are statistics and gambling).
I'm always skeptical about "eyeballs" type arguments. If we were talking about millions of people for an advert sure, but most folks here aren't YC participants / won't be and heck most talk about joining a startup as an IC on here is NOT POSITIVE ;)
It's the car commercial dilemma. No one is going to spend 30,60,100k on a whim because a commercial told them too. But the long term idea is to implant that idea of wanting X brand once you are in the market for a car. You can't know what you don't know.
But such effects need to be measured over years, not weeks. So a company won't know until it's too late.
At least Slashdot's participation in modern late stage capitalism was restricted to like, selling banner ads to RedHat, and selling mugs and t-shirts. YC is a whole other ball game.
> modern late stage capitalism ... selling banner ads to RedHat, and selling mugs and t-shirts
If these are the supposed sins of modern late stage capitalism I say let's have more of it and less of the various types of socialism which the entitled always seem to be pushing as a replacement. I'd rather ignore annoying banner ads and refrain from buying merchandising than stand in a line in a street to a shop selling something, anything, no idea what but there's a shop which has something to sell so people stand in line like they used to do in the worker's and farmer's paradise which was to lead the world revolution to the glorious victory of socialism.
I'll even take the entitled brats kvetching about the sins of the economical order which allows them both the means as well as the free time and freedom to do so. They'd be standing in some line to a shop somewhere, no fruitPhone in their pockets and no way to use it even if they had without having the state come down on them for their sins against the glorious revolution if their purported ideal order were to come to pass because the revolution always eats its own.
BTW, I don't consider slavery to be a form of modern late stage capitalism, it is more related to the primitive origins from which the different *-isms arose. Slavery used to be the norm rather than the exception and in some places in the world it still thrives. It is in the much-maligned West where the strongest movements to abolish it were and are to be found.
Aside from the mildly disturbing tone of the video, I thought it was amusing/interesting that both of them were born into families that owned factories and got into Duke. What a world of people that get into YC.
In the UK and most of the west this is unethical but there is no explicit law that makes it illegal, curious what country you are from that deems this illegal?
That was "just" CCTV, not an AI panopticon. I think the law (and nearly-guaranteed consequences) are so clear in Germany that few larger companies would be stupid enough to seriously consider something like this, and if they did, any serious Betriebsrat (works council) would put a quick end to it even before the privacy authority could bring the hammer down.
Switzerland has laws against behavioral surveillance too, although I'm not sure how the enforcement mechanisms look in practice. But I expect something like this to be too blatant for employers to get away with it. (https://www.edoeb.admin.ch/en/video-surveillance-in-the-work..., "The use of video surveillance systems for the targeted monitoring of employee behaviour is prohibited".) These rules are explicitly considered health & safety rules due to the psychological harm (stress etc.) that this kind of surveillance causes.
"The European Court of Human Rights has consistently held that video surveillance of an employee in the workplace, whether hidden or not, as well as interception of the content of employee conversations on a work phone, constitutes interference within the meaning of Article 8 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms."
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 195 ms ] thread-GATTACA
(Hint, it's potential for profit, not ethics.)
Wanting to maximize profits by squeezing work out of less-fortunate people, efficiently, and at scale.
https://marshallbrain.com/manna1
It really makes me think. Honestly the Manna system has only just since the LLM discovery been possible, whereas it seemed a bit farfetched to me 15 years ago when I first read it. It would be pretty easy to roll today’s “AI” into a product to replace fast food managers like in that story.
Which is different from chattel slavery, of course. But it's still an extant theory that gets discussed widely. It would seem an AI company to be a labor panopticon would align with the critiques raised by the concept of wage slavery.
Don't imply or wink and nudge. Say what you mean to say. Your example is either a non sequiter like mine, or it's implying something while avoiding saying the actual thing you are trying to convey.
[1]: https://www.antislavery.org/slavery-today/
Slaves didn't have freedom to move jobs or to have agency in their lives. At the base level, let alone all the abuses they faced which varied in places and times throughout history.
But a lot of these workers don't have some things that even slaves had. Like room and board.
e.g this article from six years ago about Amazon’s practices then: https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/25/18516004/amazon-warehouse...
Not saying I support this product, the demo is some horrific soulless behavior, but I’m not surprised either.
Challenge: Impossible
Not even that. Measuring output makes a certain amount of sense. This just measures "looking busy". It's practically an admission that they don't care about actual production, they just enjoy hassling people.
Wagging your finger at that “bad” employee who is “slacking” that’s a very desirable and I think almost primal motivation for some folks….
Then again these are precisely the types of "poverty studies" that have been done in India for years. "Should we fine nurses who are late to work? If so, how much?" "Should web publicly shame and harass office workers who leave early? If so, how much?" Lookin' at you, "Poverty Action Lab."
This looks like the logical extension to what we've been putting this country through for years.
I would tend to read that as saying more about the skill level (or lack thereof) of the people doing the measuring than about that their goals are
No more of this please.
This isn't just run of the mill capitalism bad, this is truly exceptionally vile and staining.
My friend, they’re one and the same.
I think to the personality type most sought after for startup jobs, the discussion here is net encouraging.
Being discouraging to others is a side benefit. (Note that I am not in the group to whom it is encouraging.)
But such effects need to be measured over years, not weeks. So a company won't know until it's too late.
If these are the supposed sins of modern late stage capitalism I say let's have more of it and less of the various types of socialism which the entitled always seem to be pushing as a replacement. I'd rather ignore annoying banner ads and refrain from buying merchandising than stand in a line in a street to a shop selling something, anything, no idea what but there's a shop which has something to sell so people stand in line like they used to do in the worker's and farmer's paradise which was to lead the world revolution to the glorious victory of socialism.
I'll even take the entitled brats kvetching about the sins of the economical order which allows them both the means as well as the free time and freedom to do so. They'd be standing in some line to a shop somewhere, no fruitPhone in their pockets and no way to use it even if they had without having the state come down on them for their sins against the glorious revolution if their purported ideal order were to come to pass because the revolution always eats its own.
BTW, I don't consider slavery to be a form of modern late stage capitalism, it is more related to the primitive origins from which the different *-isms arose. Slavery used to be the norm rather than the exception and in some places in the world it still thrives. It is in the much-maligned West where the strongest movements to abolish it were and are to be found.
What do you mean you’ve been working all day? I've got over 500 million power in “Rise of Kingdoms” and
France fining Amazon for similar surveillance based on scanner data: https://www.edpb.europa.eu/news/national-news/2024/employee-...
Germany issung a 10 million fine to a small (<1000 employees) company: https://www.dataprotectionreport.com/2021/01/new-german-fine...
That was "just" CCTV, not an AI panopticon. I think the law (and nearly-guaranteed consequences) are so clear in Germany that few larger companies would be stupid enough to seriously consider something like this, and if they did, any serious Betriebsrat (works council) would put a quick end to it even before the privacy authority could bring the hammer down.
Switzerland has laws against behavioral surveillance too, although I'm not sure how the enforcement mechanisms look in practice. But I expect something like this to be too blatant for employers to get away with it. (https://www.edoeb.admin.ch/en/video-surveillance-in-the-work..., "The use of video surveillance systems for the targeted monitoring of employee behaviour is prohibited".) These rules are explicitly considered health & safety rules due to the psychological harm (stress etc.) that this kind of surveillance causes.
https://legalitgroup.com/en/employee-monitoring-what-employe...
(In reference to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon )
'Hey Number 17 ' - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43175023 - Feb 2025 (122 comments)
Tell HN: Y Combinator backing AI company to abuse factory workers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43170850 - Feb 2025 (160 comments)
I'd be interested to know what he original pitch to YC was by this company.
YC companies often pivot - it may be that their initial pitch was not this at all.
seems like bad business since the endgame was full automation robot factory