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Show HN: Gitlab Meeting Simulator 2024

lifeisstillgood
46 replies
2d16h

This reminds me of the scam reported on here last week, where scammers raised a false large invoice, then invited the mid-level manager to a zoom meeting where the CFO and CEO of the public company were on the call (very public as they needed enough video to deepfake them) and told the guy to approve the invoice.

The gitlab thing is just “harmless” fun but real scams will force chnage - I predict in five years

- every large and maybe small companies will have public private key based approvals (not “I approve” in an email from an iPhone).

- PKIs will then be everywhere (at last!)

- meetings will be recorded and transcribed (which will have huge knock on effects)

- the push back against remote work will be real and large. Not sure what side I am on

llm_trw
20 replies
2d7h

- the push back against remote work will be real and large. Not sure what side I am on

I'm at a small company where we've started recording, transcribing and taking minutes of all meetings with AI. Then that gets fed into a RAG system and we can see what's been said when.

If you're doing it in person than all of that information will just float out of everyones heads by the end of the week.

There's a push _for_ remote work because it's actually convenient to find out what you need to do and when it needs to get finished by.

The next thing we're doing is buying everyone an intous screens so we can share whiteboards which is the last thing that in person meetings were good for.

ponector
11 replies
2d6h

recording, transcribing and taking minutes of all meetings with AI. Then that gets fed into a RAG system and we can see what's been said when.

Could you please share details on tooling for this?

llm_trw
6 replies
2d6h

Not much tooling I do it all on Linux.

I use audacity to capture the audio stream live, whisper.cpp with person segmentation to extract the text with notations on who was talking and a fine tuned llama model which is trained on data specific to the companies market to extract the minutes. It's a couple of passes for the model to write the prompts to extract the data into minutes.

The RAG system is just untrained sbert weights of every sentence in the recording and minutes shoved into the vector postgres. Queries are @mentions in the company chat.

Basically a bunch of python scripts held together by duct tape and chewing gum.

yuppiepuppie
1 replies
2d5h

Very cool. I tried to do this a couple months ago, but really had trouble recording the audio from the call. Are you recording the audio from the call on an external device ie. your mic?

To be clear, my issue was I could only capture the streaming audio of my mic or the people on the call. Never both at the same time.

llm_trw
0 replies
2d5h

I have no idea.

I just have a dummy user that joins the meetings so people known when they are being recorded. I imagine I accidentally dodged a bullet there since that user isn't supposed to have audio in and the audio out is directed to audacity and muted otherwise.

liotier
1 replies
2d6h

When querying, can the system answer with link to the minutes and the recording ? Lack of source citation for facts is a problem with what I've seen of LLMs.

llm_trw
0 replies
2d6h

Yes, part of the metadata is the date, person speaking and line number where the hit happens for each sentence if it's a hit in the transcript. If it's a hit of the minutes it's just a link to the date on which the minutes happened.

That's got nothing to do with the LLM used to do the summary but part of the RAG system.

bavell
1 replies
2d4h

Sounds like a fun project!

whisper.cpp with person segmentation

Super curious about this bit. Did you use the --diarize or the --tinydiarize flag? How accurate/reliable was the segmentation? Sounds like it was good enough to use at the very least. I had looked into this a few months ago but thought it wasn't good enough yet.

wrs
0 replies
2d1h

Me too! In particular, assuming whisper segmentation works, how did you recognize and label the individual speakers?

pnut
3 replies
2d6h

MS teams has this, don't bother cobbling together and maintaining your own solution.

llm_trw
1 replies
2d6h

Don't bother doing data science in python, Microsoft has excel.
ponector
0 replies
2d5h

And excel has python!

Jokes aside, excel is the most powerful business software ever. Everyone use it.

OJFord
0 replies
2d1h

Don't bother using it either, have you seen one of those transcripts?

Maybe it works better with an American accent.

low_key
3 replies
2d2h

This sounds like a recipe for getting people to only speak after careful curation.

anticensor
2 replies
1d10h

Which is a good thing as there is no such thing to unsay.

roynasser
1 replies
1d

Its a great way to stiffle innovation, though... Lots of ideas start out as dumb, and then get refined... We have also been using AI, meeting recordings, and summarization to some extent, but I dont see it being used "for all meetings", it will just be very counter productive IMO.

n2d4
0 replies
23h32m

By that logic, company cultures that don't punish dumb ideas will remain innovative though.

throwuwu
2 replies
2d6h

I’m pretty sure you could record and transcribe in person meetings just as easily. I’d bet there are several services doing that now but it would also be an incredibly simple project to build in house. The only problem is identifying who is speaking which could be a deal breaker for some uses.

llm_trw
1 replies
2d6h

I’m pretty sure you could record and transcribe in person meetings just as easily.

The issue is that in person you constantly have informal "meetings" where information is shared and impossible to record, unless you force everyone to walk around with sound recorders on. Which come to think of it is something that might well be done in some companies I've worked for before.

The only problem is identifying who is speaking which could be a deal breaker for some uses.

Trivial, it's a problem that's been solved for a while and I managed to get it working in a couple of days of messing about.

mattw2121
0 replies
2d5h

The issue is that in person you constantly have informal "meetings" where information is shared and impossible to record

I'm positive that people working remotely can just as easily have informal meetings were they won't be recorded. In fact, I'm absolutely sure that a good segment of the workforce will make sure they have meetings in that informal sense, specifically so the recordings aren't happening.

mistercheph
0 replies
2d2h

The next thing we're doing is buying everyone an intous screens so we can share whiteboards which is the last thing that in person meetings were good for.

HHHa, tell me you're middle management without telling me you're middle management.

cranium
10 replies
2d12h

You can be at the office and forced to do a zoom meeting because some people are in another office/country.

geraldwhen
7 replies
2d9h

I haven’t had a fully collocated team in 15 years. The only purpose of RTO is tax breaks and stealth layoffs.

diggan
6 replies
2d9h

The only purpose of RTO is tax breaks and stealth layoffs

God forbid there might be actual people (including developers) who prefer to work in an office with others. Impossible!

mfost
3 replies
2d8h

They are free to return to the office and work with each other in person then.

diggan
1 replies
2d6h

Right, so there are more reasons for RTO than tax breaks and stealth layoffs then. Good to know.

srveale
0 replies
2d6h

RTO usually means mandated, company wide RTO, not "there's an office if you want." So no, not right.

eru
0 replies
2d5h

Going by my own experience, everything being remotely or everything being in the office (regularly, but not necessary all the time) works best.

It's hard to make a hybrid approach work, where some people are mostly in the office, and some people are always remote.

However the extra burden falls mostly on the remote people, so I see not much of a reason to disallow people from going remote.

geraldwhen
0 replies
2d1h

They are not afforded that opportunity. They are required to work with remote people/groups across split sites.

OJFord
0 replies
2d1h

Ok sure, but God also forbid there might be people who don't? Or if someone on there team wants to work in an office with them they should have to go in like it or not?

RTO is clearly not about 'end-employee' preferences, having an office can be about that, but RTO is just come to the office regardless of your preference.

0xEF
1 replies
2d8h

I think the real question in this scenario is "could this have been an email?" Video meetings are disastrously unproductive in my experience. I have no problem with remote workers doing their thing, but being on the production and service side of things in manufacturing, taking time out of my already busy schedule for an hour-long video meeting that could have been summarized in a single-paragraph email makes my day feel like stop-and-go traffic.

It is a remarkably halting experience I used to joke about, but after years of a considerable amount of wasted time that leaves me running to meet deadlines and shipping dates, I have trouble laughing at it anymore.

ryandrake
0 replies
2d6h

Unfortunately, the answer to "could this meeting have been an email?" is often “but do you read your email?” I try to always reach for Email first, but if I don’t get a response or see the requested action happen… over to videoconf we have to go :(

armchairhacker
8 replies
2d14h

Why the pushback against remote work? When it works it works, and it’s cheaper for everyone involved.

midasuni
4 replies
2d9h

I suspect the argument would be you can’t deep fake in-person interactions

rickdeckard
1 replies
2d8h

Which is just a weird line of thought, leading to "any kind of meaningful decision will only be made when all involved persons are physically in the same room", which results in a chain of meetings between people of different layers and signed papers changing hands.

So in conclusion, the argument is that the existence and threat of deepfakes will cause companies to abandon digital transformation entirely and move back to the 80s...

falcor84
0 replies
2d4h

Paper signatures are of course easy to forge. If anything, I think this will lead to more focus on digital attestation. Maybe even [swallowing a bit of vomit]... blockchain.

lars512
0 replies
2d9h

I mean, as long as your deepfake is contributing constructively…

lagniappe
0 replies
2d8h

I've been deep faking in-person as a person who knows what they're doing for years

0xEF
1 replies
2d8h

I think it depends on the industry. For example, I work in manufacturing and we have a sales team that is in the office once a week, if we are lucky. The disconnect in communication between sales, management (who is also mostly remote) and production is absolutely massive and causing issues that did not exist prior to their current remote status. Examples include that both management and sales are often sluggish to respond when production needs clarification for custom work, and that the typical manager or salesperson's comprehension of the products being sold is atrophied simply because their exposure has diminished in recent years. In the context of our business, it would be beneficial if everyone was in the building working side by side and since only two members or our sales team are "outside" sales, there's not a compelling reason for the rest to be working from home.

On the flip side, my wife does medical coding, which is entirely remote and doesn't require a constant line of communication to management or your coworkers, for that matter, unless there is a problem, most of which can be rectified with an email, chat or Zoom meeting. There is no compelling reason for her to show up to an office to do computer-based work that can be done literally anywhere with an Internet connection.

As the US moves forward with continued remote work, I think it's important that companies be honest with the realities of the market they are in and plan accordingly.

ponector
0 replies
2d6h

If the company is bigger - then even with forbidden remote work you'll have all different divisions scattered across multiple locations and have the same communication issues as with remote team.

Turns out the issue is not in the remote\office style but in the processes applied to the organization.

bogota
0 replies
2d12h

There wont be. Not any more than we already have. The comment above you is pure sensationalism based on nothing.

john-radio
1 replies
2d14h

This is not a deepfake, though, to be clear; it's a YouTube video of a real GitLab data science staff meeting.

geek_at
0 replies
2d9h

they were talking about the scam, not the gitlab meeting simulator

michaelbuckbee
0 replies
2d3h

Another live video scam I've seen is done via streaming. Scammers will take a long pre-recorded video feed of an on stage interview with a famous person (Elon Musk) and then stream it inside a frame and account that's hyping a crypto launch or something.

lagt_t
0 replies
2d8h

Almost all companies have ERP systems with 2FA and compliance teams, there is no more "I approve" emails...

api
0 replies
2d7h

Remote work makes it easier to transcribe every communication. As for PKI you need that anyway and we mostly already have it. We just need a good auth chain for transactions.

underscoring
4 replies
2d8h

I dont have a need for this as I work from home and dont have people bothering me.

What I need is the inverse of this, a virtual me that I can send to zoom meetings where I 100% won't have to interact

ryandrake
1 replies
2d6h

I guess I’d ask why you are going to a meeting (let alone a zoom meeting) where you don’t interact? If you’re not contributing, and you don’t need to listen, why go at all? Maybe I am lucky but I’ve never worked anywhere that people are expected to show up for meetings that are totally irrelevant to their work. I decline meetings all the time.

hyperhopper
0 replies
2d5h

The thing is given enough beiracracy there are always meetings that are _technically_ relevant but not really.

An all hands where a director lays out a strategy that was already laid out in an email and will be reiterated in another email and also will be the OKRs? Sure that's relevant to my work but I'm not going to say anything, but nobody can really say they have better things to do that go to the directors meeting about the whole purpose of our job (even if it doesn't change my personal work)

Or even sometimes things like stand-ups where half the people are going to say something along the lines of "working on the same thing I've been working on all week with slight incremental progress"

julesvr
1 replies
2d4h

There was a guy who applied to YC with this idea and although he didn't get in I think, the app was quite successful. I think it was called Beulr, but looking at their website it seems they have pivoted.

titanomachy
0 replies
2d1h

the app was called Beulr

As in “Ferris Beuler’s day off”?? Hilarious!

davely
4 replies
2d16h

Haha, brilliant! I never actually realized this was a thing.

Last year, I took a screen recording of an hour long Zoom meeting on my work machine and sometimes play that on screen in my home office when I need to set aside a bit of extra quiet time. Family will walk in, see the meeting on screen and immediately walk out.

I felt really bad about doing this, but now seeing that other people do it (and you've made a website solely dedicated to this purpose), I feel less bad. :)

But seriously, great job on this!

globular-toast
3 replies
2d10h

Could you not just tell them not to? And close the door?

voakbasda
2 replies
2d9h

That does not work for some people. They just don’t get it. They will open the door and walk right in. Doesn’t matter how many times you ask them to do otherwise.

I have this problem. I plan to try this trick myself. Sad that it’s necessary, but happy that this may be a solution.

lagt_t
0 replies
2d8h

Lock the door?

globular-toast
0 replies
2d7h

I think being able to make such people understand is an important social skill. They obviously understand the meeting thing. Why is that? You need to react to every interruption in the same way you would if they interrupted a meeting. Allow yourself to be genuinely outraged that they would even think about crossing the threshold. It's OK to have boundaries.

Panini_Jones
2 replies
2d17h

I saw this on Twitter the other day and saw all of the comments were about people use this video to reduce how much people bother them.

The squares in the video reorganize about halfway through, but the overlay self-view video that's been added awkwardly stays the same. Maybe it would make more sense if it was fixed in the bottom right corner like normal Zoom calls?

brikym
1 replies
2d17h

I hacked it together while waiting for Windows updates. It also doesn't work well on iOS and the video is a bit squished. If it takes off I'll fix these issues. It would be nice to have display modes for all the popular meeting apps like Zoom, Google, MS Teams etc.

hyperific
0 replies
2d16h

You hacked this together right quick! The post about Gitlab meetings was just on HN yesterday.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39363358

tester457
1 replies
2d14h

The capacity for gitlab's video meetings to say both nothing and everything at the same time amazes me.

stkdump
0 replies
2d10h

I think at least one participant is visibly uncomfortable with the fact that a f*g internal meeting is posted for the entire world to watch.

mhh__
1 replies
2d15h

Quite funny although as a user of gitlab tinged with a slight pain in that I think gitlab is just pure wasted opportunity (i.e. my experiences of using it versus certain other tools give me certain opinions of gitlab co.)

jiocrag
0 replies
2d13h

what

adorton
1 replies
2d15h

We need to hook this up to a boss key stat

eru
0 replies
2d5h

More like wife-key, judging by the comments on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39363358 from yesterday.

2d8a875f-39a2-4
1 replies
2d9h

I clicked the link and watched a bit thinking that the whole thing was a quality AI production. I thought that the visuals and audio were really believable and well synced but the script was just a little too content-free and gave it away.

Turns out it's not AI, just a recording of generic desk jockeys using generic corporate meeting-jargon.

eru
0 replies
2d5h

Slight tangent:

I recently got accused of writing like GPT, and I had to inform the accuser that, alas, I've been uncool since long before GPT.

whoomp12341
0 replies
2d16h

found a bug! control + scroll. when you zoom in and out it doesn't scale well

theogravity
0 replies
2d16h

Is this something you'd use when you're in the office, or working remotely when you live with others and want to not be distributed?

neom
0 replies
2d11h

They link to a Twitter post that has a YT video showing the example of a video used, the comments section is... interesting... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBVtvOpU80Q

mvkel
0 replies
2d11h

This is hilarious and a perfect capsule of the times we live in

mattl
0 replies
2d16h

When I was at GitLab the meetings had about 20x more people and everyone spoke for 45 seconds

gregorvand
0 replies
2d12h

Play Joe Goddard's 'Lasers' as background music while using this and it turns into a pretty fun experience.

fnordpiglet
0 replies
2d1h

This is absolutely brilliant and well acted capturing the essence of the entire 30 years of my career. Mon Rey is brilliant.

brikym
0 replies
1d18h

Haha looks like Gitlab blocked me from embedding the video!

BerislavLopac
0 replies
2d4h

That was quick! I posted https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39363358 just yesterday. :D