The demonstration from Optifye.ai, a member of Y Combinator’s current cohort, sparked a social media backlash, which led to YC removing it from social.
Optifye builds software that helps factory owners know who work “real-time” and who is “real-time,” according to YC’s profile, thanks to AI-powered security cameras. They say there is.
According to a snapshot saved by TechCrunch, YC posted an Optify demo video on X (and LinkedIn) on Monday.
This video shows Optifye co-founder Kushal Mohta, acting as the boss of a clothing factory. In fact, it’s about a low-performing worker known as “Number 17” who calls co-founder Vivaan Baid as a supervisor.
“Hey, No. 17, what’s wrong? You’re red,” Baid asks the worker.
“Do you work all day? You never hit the hourly output and you had an efficiency of 11.4%. This is a really bad thing,” Baid retorts.
After checking Optifye’s dashboard, the supervisor examines the output of “number 17” for 15 days, determines that the worker is degraded and calls the worker.
“A rough day? It’s like a tough month,” he says.
The clip has been heavily criticized for X, with @Vcbrags calling it “sweat as a service” and another clip was considered “computer vision sweat shop software.” It also sparked criticism of Y Combinator’s own link sharing site Hacker News.
But not everyone was critical. Customer Support Startup Intercom CEO Eoghan McCabe posted that some people complained that it would be better to stop purchasing products made in China and India.
In fact, it’s not too difficult to find a Chinese tech company that promotes “sleep detection” cameras that use computer vision to find sleep workers.
In any case, YC ended up removing demo videos from social, not before they were saved by several accounts.
Neither YC nor Optifye.ai responded to requests for comment.
The unintended virality of this video indicates an increased anxiety over the rise of AI, particularly in the workplace.
Most Americans oppose using AI to track worker desk times, movements, and computer use. This is a voting for Pew discovered in 2023. This is a segment of surveillance products called “bossware.”
But that hasn’t stopped VCS from funding the space. Invisible AI, for example, raised $15 million in 2022 and also pasted surveillance cameras for workers at the factory.
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