Employee quits job over an Nvidia RTX 5060(www.tomshardware.com)
27 pointsby R_Uttam2 months ago11 comments
  • Nathanba2 months ago
    This is a very obviously AI written article, I don't get why these newspapers think that this is the future. Just look at this, but this style is all over the entire article: "Graphics cards are typically the most expensive components in a computer. So, when you get your hands on one for free, it's like the universe finally throwing a bone at you, rewarding you for years of kindness and suffering. Then, if that GPU suddenly gets enveloped in a legal feud, you start to second-guess your alliances, shattering loyalties in a moment"
    • dfajgljsldkjag2 months ago
      Absolutely not. Tom's Hardware is known for this kind of colorful but also lazy writing, but it's an ok news site that has been around for decades. And maybe the author might have used a trickle of AI, but I don't see any sign that any significant amount of this article is AI.

      Additionally, even though they're not fully reliable, most popular AI detectors rate this article as 100% human.

      You can see this author has been writing similar low-effort listicles and articles since well before ChatGPT came out. The writing style also matches:

      https://web.archive.org/web/20200811132340/https://appuals.c...

      https://web.archive.org/web/20221021195546/https://www.wepc....

      • Nathanba2 months ago
        hm I guess it's possible, they show a similar kind of very mechanical writing style across two different authors from before AI was a thing. Maybe that's unfortunate for them because it's similar to how AI would enumerate facts to tell a story.
        • Newlaptop2 months ago
          You've got your cause and effect flipped.

          They don't sound like AI. AI sounds like them, because this is exactly the type of content that the LLMs were trained on and tuned to replicate.

      • salawat2 months ago
        It's almost like the entire point of LLM's was to alienate the author or wordsmith from their works. To commoditize composition from it's dependence on a human being so that the authorial dependency could be reduced to merely possession of a GPU and the electricity to run it. No one wants to say the quiet part out loud though.
    • friedtofu2 months ago
      /barf

      Thanks for saving me the read, I wish we(or the HN team) could flag these posts as AI-authored.

      • Reubachi2 months ago
        Man, this is Tom's Hardware, and the author (H. Nasir) isn't exactly a contnent mill. He doesn't reference AI in any source, and this article is in line with his other writing styles.

        It worries me that the "average HNer" doesn't perform independent analysis on even the headlines anymore, but rather the "top comment/flavor of the month" opinion at the top of the discussion.

        It is...dangerous to then say "I wish we we could flag these posts as AI-authored"

        Dang has done an incredible job with the flagging system, and it is reliant on the shared understanding of the users here that we are all acting in good faith and not performing surface level analysis/criticism.

      • bdangubic2 months ago
        per HN these days every article is AI written so you can stop reading all together :)
        • bulbar2 months ago
          Only every article one dislikes.
    • AndrewDucker2 months ago
      I'm pretty sure I don't want bones to be thrown at me.
      • IAmBroom2 months ago
        There goes my theory that, on the internet, everyone else is a dog.
    • AlexDragusin2 months ago
      Sends shivers down your spine :)
  • zem2 months ago
    to be fair, he quit because he (rightly!) disagreed with the company's petty-minded insistence that the prize belonged to them, not because he valued a graphics card over his internship.
    • N_Lens2 months ago
      Salaries for interns in China are low enough that a 5060 is a huge deal.
    • pavel_lishin2 months ago
      It sounds like he quit because HR told him to:

      > HR then told the intern to "look for another company," and he submitted his resignation that night.

    • SanjayMehta2 months ago
      I quit a company because they tried to appropriate points on my credit card gathered by their business travel.
  • Quarondeau2 months ago
    Raffles are meant to increase engagement and participation, and getting conference participants to interact with prize sponsors and remain until the closing remarks. If employers started to demand that any prizes won be considered property of the company instead of the person who won, participants would likely start paying less attention and probably skip raffle activities altogether.
  • AstroJetson2 months ago
    It’s like the days when I traveled for work, and some bright spark in finance said the bonus points belonged to the company. We had a few go-arounds about it. It got ugly in the company, and I refused to fly. Then about a dozen other employees refused to fly. I still went to customer locations, but I drove. What could be a one day trip to Chicago became 3 days out, one day there, 3 days back. Mileage, food and hotels were easily 4 times the cost of the flights. They backed down.
    • prewett2 months ago
      Boy, I hope you enjoyed driving! And had a bunch of audio books you wanted to listen to.

      And there's an easy solution for them, too: pay with the company card. If the company expects me to use my personal financing on their behalf, then I get to keep the benefits.

  • miffy9002 months ago
    > The firm gradually grew more contentious, demanding that the RTX 5060 be handed in because the event it was acquired at was part of a business trip, entirely paid for by the company. The employee would never have won the GPU had the firm not enabled him to attend the venue. Our winner refused, arguing that it belonged to him because he had won it on his own by pure luck.

    Hmm...I feel like the company's reasoning here is almost acceptable. Almost, because I know as a (paid) employee, all of the code I write, any inventions or IP I come up with are the company's property, so it almost makes sense that the company might also want to assert its right to claim that any physical things given or gifted in the course of work-related trips that employees take on company time.

    but the article mentions the winner was an intern, not an employee, and I know many interns i've worked with never actually signed an employment agreement, because they dont actually get paid. They sign NDAs but not full on employment agreements, so how can any company treat them like an employee? if I wasn't getting paid, I'd 100% hold my ground like the intern did and take it.

    • IAmBroom2 months ago
      Doesn't matter. It's a small amount (in the eyes of the company), and is bound to feel unfair to the employee.

      It's like your employer asking that you keep the pretzels on your business flights and hand them in to the office snack bar. Only ill will can come from that, and zero profit.

    • salawat2 months ago
      You realize you can redline the default IP assignment clauses, right? It should never have been normalized that an employer gets blanket claim to all mental output on your part. Especially things done in your off hours on equipment the company doesn't own.

      It's just another example of how contract law, lawyers, and legal fictions represent a bottom up funnel of value extraction from the populace in which they exist. Can't even just work and get paid without some arsehole driving/hiding behind a legal fiction strip mining you for all the law will let them get away with.

  • jakedata2 months ago
    This is an extremely salient point:

    ...some mockingly asking whether the firm would've maintained the same tenacity and reimbursed the Intern had he been fined 50,000 RMB at the event instead

  • brcmthrowaway2 months ago
    Who are the amorphous blob of Chinese netizens who control the cultural dialogue in the world?
  • duxup2 months ago
    No point in doing a giveaway at these events if the company is taking them.
  • snvzz2 months ago
    Company should plainly be banned from the event thereon.
  • EnPissant2 months ago
    Dear Penthouse...
  • billy99k2 months ago
    [flagged]
    • bcraven2 months ago
      I find that very difficult to believe
      • QuadmasterXLII2 months ago
        I envy your optimism
      • billy99k2 months ago
        Well, you can send me a graphics card and find out.
    • ddrdrgba2 months ago
      Calm down Amber Heard.