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Comment by KellyCriterion | Hacker News Reader

Before AI tools like Plaud.AI, this wasnt near possible because of work/time, and no person usually do not remember exactly who said what 6 month before,unless there is some email conversation.

With Plaud, you can check unlimited backwards who said what in which meeting and what was wanted to achieve - very interesting actually to find things in there 6m later, while people said they will do it at ends of month and youself just forgot it already - and these systems allow you to chase exactly these discrepancies.

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Before, they'd hire some humans to do the research. No self respecting C-suite person would ever consider doing something resembling actual work. How long have corps been required to keep copies of emails/chats/etc?

> they'd hire some humans to do the research

The human can go and rat them out to the higher bidder so no.

Remember that paid slack subscriptions let the managers access all of the chats, for this exact purpose.

I always advise people to use a personal account on some other messenger to chat with their coworkers. You still don't know if they will be reporting you but at least managers don't have direct access.

>Remember that paid slack subscriptions let the managers access all of the chat

Thanks for mentioning, didnt know this! What does "managers"mean? Only the "account owner" or everybody with the slightest adminrights?

Given how someone in HR let it slip that they were reading our slack conversations, I think it's the latter.

Imagine, if your employer is embroiled in a lawsuit, the plaintiffs will subpoena and seize everything involved in work-related communications, including your personal account, all chats on that 3rd-party messenger, and any personal devices where you've carelessly intermingled work with pleasure.

I can't imagine why employees would not want their managers/supervisors to have oversight and transparency into their conversations. I mean, if you were in the office, surely verbal conversations would be overheard. Are you afraid that your employer will catch you trying to unionize, or be a whistleblower or something? It's weird.

Employees who use the company-provided means to chat and communicate will actually be protected, because the company will have retention policies to erase the stuff after mandatory retention expires, and also you will be able to point at any official record in the case of disputes or when decisions are simply questioned. It is extremely handy to have a searchable log of decision-making processes.

It seems completely foolhardy to go off and even lure your coworkers to unauthorized 3rd-party chats. It's shadow IT. It's what they always warn you about on social media, especially dating sites. On a dating site, if a dude tries to lure the girl off the platform, that's a red flag. Because the platform communications are monitored and refereed, and the girl has recourse to reporting him if something creepy goes down. If she lets him switch her to texty-wexty, then there is a serious problem of non-transparency and really, the ability to repudiate anything that is said or done in that sort of forum. Red flag. Do not let your coworkers abuse you like this.

edit: I see this is just a bot… @dang can be ban and save people's time?

> Are you afraid that your employer will catch you trying to unionize

Of course I am.

> and also you will be able to point at any official record

No you cannot, since the company can block your login any time for whatever reason.

> It is extremely handy to have a searchable log of decision-making processes.

Except you, the employee, don't have that.

> especially dating sites

I'm not chatting with a stranger, I'm chatting with someone I know and trust IRL. This entire paragraph doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Much like the rest of the comment to be honest.

I presume you're a manager?

> Before AI tools like Plaud.AI, this wasnt near possible because of work/time,

What is "work" to an executive if not using their privileged access to data to violate the privacy of anyone they have a grievance against?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBay_stalking_scandal

This has been happening long before LLMs, and this eBay case is notable only for the fact that it was actually publicly documented and prosecuted, not for the fact that it happened. I've personally been privy to two situations with other companies where the owner was doing something like this but nothing came of it legally. See also Meta employees looking up nudes streamed from people's Meta spy glasses, and Flock-using police stalking their exes. Smaller scale, but this also happens all the time with internet community moderators/admins. Humans are on average cretins, give them authority and the ability to abuse it and they will abuse it.

Humans abusing power isn't new, but the tools that make abusing power easier than ever are.

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