Y Combinator Supports AI Startup Dehumanizing Factory Workers
28 comments
·February 26, 2025yellow_lead
If too many people comment on this, it will get removed from the front page again. I realize this is a bit hypocritical by commenting this.
Mistletoe
Going to favorite it just so I can find it before it gets flagged. We have to redo the flagging system for HN, it's a complete joke. Why do they persist in the idea that it is better than simple upvotes and downvotes?
itishappy
None have been flagged. As I understand, if there's more comments than upvotes in a short period, it's automatically considered engagement bait and deranked.
Edit: Per Dang, they have been flagged, but HN has opted to turn off flagging for YC companies.
> It set off the flamewar detector. Moderators haven't touched it, except that we turned off the user flags on the story. Otherwise it would be displaying [flagged] at the top.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43170850
jrs235
Use hckrnews.com to find top stories that get flagged out removed.
benterix
I usually start my day by checking these first. Sometimes what happens is some actual spam flagged for genuine reasons but I'd say 70% of the time these are things that are interesting but there is a vocal group that doesn't like it (=the topic itsef, the conclusions of the article, etc.).
abnercoimbre
This is my go-to alternative to read HN. The half-life for front page entries is also longer, which lets you catch up with more ease.
scarab92
I flagged because I can’t stand this overly moralising cancel culture attitude.
This exact tech is already commonplace in industry, but no one is trying to find an industry wide solution, just taking cheap pot shots that the nth startup doing the same thing.
If you don’t like what this startup is doing, build something better instead of virtue signalling here.
tavavex
The "overly moralising cancel culture" statement doesn't really prove anything here. "overly moralising" just says that you seem to disagree with all arguments based on 'too much morals', with no justification of why those arguments are bad or why using 'morals' is misguided. "cancel culture" means that you disagree with people trying to get things shut down, again, with no justification. This is just the culture war word salad of the decade, because there's no underlying point - just an attempt to wrap all the things people disagree with into one easy-to-dismiss package.
And no, this issue isn't something you can out-compete. Authority figures notably love surveillance - no matter if it's your government, a tech megacorp or a manager at a factory. There's no alternative solution that provides the same hit of power and control like surveillance. Social pushback is the only remaining way.
nurettin
That statement makes no sense. Flagging is cancelling. You are what you can't stand.
santoshalper
If you don't like evil, you should do something not evil. But also, you shouldn't tell evil people that you don't like what they're doing, because that might hurt their feelings.
bryant
Previously discussed 1d ago:
re
Much more discussion in these posts, which AFAICT tend to quickly fall afoul of either user flagging or the HN flamewar detection and drop off the front page:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43170850 Tell HN: Y Combinator backing AI company to abuse factory workers (476 points, 163 comments)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43175023 'Hey Number 17 ' (329 points, 125 comments)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43180133 Y Combinator deletes posts after a startup's demo goes viral (203 points, 73 comments)
Aveng1991
The founders simply digitized existing practice into a piece of software. The demo could have been framed in a better way, but simply shifting the blame on the founders is very convenient.
Factories loose contract over minor delays and issues. Often times the difference between workers enjoying a little humane working conditions is 20 cents, which big retail refuse to pay while the same goods retail for 4X- 5X margin.
The problem isn’t the software, since most factories already employ similar process in other manual ways. Factories that adhere to efficiency survive, those who don’t simply die. Even 10% efficiency boost can mean a lot in industries with razor thin margins.
bsnnkv
I saw that the YC Twitter account has now scrubbed the announcement post, I was surprised to see very little discussion about it here until now
itishappy
This is particularly egregious, but I also suspect it's exactly how a large portion of the world currently operates. These founders explicitly stated that they grew up observing their parents factories. I doubt they learned such callous disregard for workers at Duke.
fallingfrog
It’s a peek behind the curtain for sure.
MattGaiser
It is, and ultimately largely with the same dehumanization but less precision.
So instead of the worker being yelled at because of the AI, the worker will be yelled at because the boss imagines their pile to be smaller than the pile of another worker.
It being common and unfixable is implicit in how this criticism is levelled. Tools that track efficiency should be a great thing. The criticism comes because everyone knows exactly how they will be cruelly used and that is treated as unfixable.
uSoldering
As someone with over a decade in industrial manufacturing, there is only ever the in-group of the masters, and the out-group of the serfs. Actually making things is merely the means to the end of neo-feudalism.
MattGaiser
I am surprised this is a new startup. Amazon has long been practicing micro Taylorism on every worker.
tavavex
I think there are many companies that are trying to do something like this. But I'm pretty certain Amazon specifically didn't license their own technology to others.
spaceguillotine
it got so bad i got junk mail from amazon to resident today looking for warehouse workers
klipklop
I bet it does not even work accurately. Dooming good workers while enriching themselves and investors.
Near-peak Silicon Valley. Surprised they didn’t figure out how to do fraudulent medical tests as well for a side business.
spaceguillotine
This is the kind of AI that leads to turnover like Amazon that is so bad they are so desperate for warehouse staff they took to mass junk mailing people to try and find new hires because they fired all the eligible ones.
serious late stage capitalism stuff right here and goes against the advice of successful business leaders that you have to instill trust and confidence in your team to get them to perform.
Whoever made that AI should read Ricardo Semler and Paul Orfalea and stop drinking the tech bro get rich kool-aid and build a business that makes the world better, not worse.
yoyopa
[dead]
This is the same article as the following, with an altered headline:
'Hey Number 17 ' - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43175023 - Feb 2025 (122 comments)
Also recent and related:
Tell HN: Y Combinator backing AI company to abuse factory workers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43170850 - Feb 2025 (160 comments)