Startup accelerator Y Combinator has eliminated a video demo from its social media channels after it sparked large backlash for selling what critics referred to as “dystopian” office surveillance. The video, posted by Optifye.ai, showcased an AI-powered system designed to watch manufacturing unit staff’ effectivity in real-time.
A startup to watch manufacturing unit staff has sparked large backlash on-line (Representational picture)
Optifye.ai, co-founded by Indian-origin entrepreneurs Vivaan Baid and Kushal Mohta, makes use of laptop imaginative and prescient know-how to trace staff on meeting traces and supply manufacturing unit managers with productiveness knowledge. The controversial demo featured the founders role-playing as manufacturing unit supervisors utilizing their software program.
Within the video, Baid identifies an underperforming employee, referred to solely as “Number 17,” and reprimands him for inefficiency. “You haven’t hit your hourly output even once today,” Baid states within the clip. The supervisor then checks the employee’s previous efficiency and remarks, “Rough day? More like a rough month.”
The backlash
The demo was met with speedy criticism on social media, with customers accusing the startup of dehumanizing staff and selling exploitative labour practices.
Christopher Amidon, founding father of Subsea Robotics, took to X (previously Twitter) to precise his outrage, writing, “Leave it to a bunch of children who’ve never worked a real job for a single day in their lives—and still haven’t graduated college—to come up with some obnoxious slave-driving dystopian s**t like this.”
One other person condemned it as “sweatshops-as-a-service.” Some referred to as it akin to “promoting slavery.”
HT.com has reached out to Optifye for a statement and will update this copy on receiving a response.
Despite the backlash, some defended the concept, highlighting that such surveillance technology is already in use. Vedant Nair, a founder who previously participated in Y Combinator, noted that while the demo was in “bad taste,” related instruments are actively being carried out in factories worldwide.
Intercom CEO Eoghan McCabe additionally weighed in, mentioning that critics ought to rethink their stance in the event that they proceed to buy items manufactured in India and China, the place worker-monitoring programs are already frequent.
Optifye.ai’s Indian-origin founders
The product on the centre of this controversy was co-founded by Vivaan Baid and Kushal Mohta.
Optifye.ai’s founders, each of whom studied at Duke College, declare their publicity to manufacturing environments influenced their determination to develop the software program.
“My family has been running a manufacturing company since before I was born,” Baid wrote on the corporate’s Y Combinator profile, including: “ I’ve been around assembly lines for as long as I can remember.”
Mohta shared an identical background, stating that his unrestricted entry to manufacturing unit flooring since age 15 helped form the concept for Optifye. “ My family also runs several manufacturing plants in various industries, which has given me unrestricted access to assembly lines since I was 15.”