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Comment by federal | Hacker News Reader

So is he going to lobby for a massive overhaul of Foxconn's employment practices?

Presumably he'd point you toward https://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/, especially the "2017 Progress Report" toward the top of that page.

Edit: I don't post that to defend Cook/Apple, just to point out that Apple has done quite a bit of talking about this topic since the bad old days when they really did need to make some changes. Have they done "enough"? I have no idea, and would love to hear someone knowledgable criticize the steps they've taken so far.

I opened this up just for fun. I'll start by saying I do think Apple is doing quite a bit in this regard and are pushing things forward towards better working conditions. Having said that, what is still considered "acceptable" and worthy of touting is pretty sad, although I guess it is compared with where we they were just a few years ago.

Flipping to page 9, they list 98% compliance with international working hours limits, touting "Full-time doesn't mean you should work all the time." Compliant in this case is a 60-hour workweek with 1 day off every 7 days (presumably this is not an occasional duration but rather a normal week at a fixed wage). If this is the case, technology sure isn't serving these unlucky humans very well.

Apple has done more than any other American company to improve working conditions in China.

Even if that's true, it does not mean they have done enough.

That's fair enough as long as other companies and their customers are held equally responsible. Just because we sometimes/always use linux does not mean the hardware we run it on has an equally "clean" background. Also, we buy too much stuff, meaning too much stuff is being produced... etc.

What do you base that claim on?

From your reading of the article, is that within the context of what the article was referencing? Because I'm reading nothing that indicates to me that the conversation/interview had anything to do with manufacturing or employment practices. Additionally, I would argue that "employment practices" have little or nothing to do with "technology".

That's a fair point - the article pretty clearly has a different focus than what I was alluding to. My point is more that if Tim Cook is going to make these sort of surface level musings about how AI/tech will need to remain tools of humans I think it's important for him to realize that ultimately there are still humans who are tools of other humans. Also I personally think that 'technology' permeates and oozes into nearly all aspects of our lives at this point. I think you're correct in that strictly domain knowledge regarding technology wouldn't involve discussing employment practices; however, real world applications of tech very much so involves a discussion of employment practices. When Cook makes comments that "he’s not comfortable with automating the human entirely out of the equation." -- I understand he's focusing on the integration of AI into human systems but I'd be more than willing to bet that he is perfectly comfortable with automating the labor out of the equation - and therefore a human out of the equation - by cutting costs through a fully automated production line.

So you think "a massive overhaul of Foxconn's employment practices" will serve humanity?

Yes.

Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere.

If you have an app filling your database with bad data, do you just take an extra step of writing a tool to correct bad data after the fact?

I'd rather fix the app itself so that it isn't sending bad data.

"Fixing Foxconn" is taking bad output and correcting it. It's not fixing the app generating bad data.

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