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Comment by analog31 | Hacker News Reader

>>>> Using the anonymized data in Aware’s analytics product, clients can see how employees of a certain age group or in a particular geography are responding to a new corporate policy or marketing campaign

>>>> “It won’t have names of people, to protect the privacy,” Schumann said. Rather, he said, clients will see that “maybe the workforce over the age of 40 in this part of the United States is seeing the changes to [a] policy very negatively because of the cost, but everybody else outside of that age group and location sees it positively because it impacts them in a different way.”

QFT. It's always the over-40 who are under suspicion.

Disclosure: Old.

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>>> It's always the over-40 who are under suspicion.

Because of our (over 40s) years of watching bad policy after bad policy destroying our work places, and speaking up.

There is a reason companies love hiring young college grads.

If that's the intention everyone who uses this software opens themselves up to age discrimination lawsuits (40 years of age is the cutoff). This is either a really dumb way to market a product or it's actually meant to detect those discriminatory policies so employers can undo them before someone decides to sue.

I think you're assuming the software would be used to punish people who don't like the policies...but what if it's just used to help accommodate groups who don't like the policies?

You are hoping for altruistic behavior in a highly capitalist environment. This is incorrect.

It will not be used for anything but control and punishment.

No, this is the "safe" way to discriminate without explicitly saying "we don't like you."

Case in point, look at Atlanta. Mandatory drug testing is still a thing, and they're averse to hiring anybody with a criminal conviction. If you really want to be nasty, you set up office far away from the nearest MARTA line. Altogether, you'll get very few minority applicants.

What discriminatory practice would you sue over? They drug test everyone, turn away all convicts, and you can't compel a company to be accessible by public transit.

So in the quote, gee, this policy being "really unpopular with those over 40" is how you drive them out. Being very intolerant of family/outside emergencies is another way.

> a new corporate policy or marketing campaign

Reality: 50% of the workers never opened the e-mail. For the other half, average reading time was under 5 seconds. 40% of those who interacted with the e-mail deleted it. Two people "accidentally" reported it as junk mail.

When your aim is constant growth, you're going to build your strategy towards what resonated with younger age groups.

In my experience, it’s always the over-40 group who are trying to implement these features to keep an eye on the young troublemakers.

It’s certainly not Gen Z kids in leadership positions implementing these AI snooping policies at these mega corporations.

Since the edit window is closed, I'll just clarify that over-40 is a protected class in the US.

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