AI Starts to Impact Attendance: Some Companies Make Programmers Work Night Shifts to Save Tokens and Reduce Peak Hour Usage

Trading Beats AI Brief, a startup of about ten people, has started to have programmers work in shifts. The reason is not that the servers need to be monitored 24/7, but rather to save on AI Tokens. An employee posted on V2EX, stating that the company heavily relies on services like DeepSeek and SmartCode. During certain peak hours, the models incur higher charges or consumption limits. The company has therefore decided to schedule shifts during off-peak hours.

The new attendance system requires employees to take one weekday off and one day off on the weekend each week, with the flexibility to combine them as desired but with advance scheduling. The lunch break on weekdays has also been postponed to after 14:00. The poster later revealed that the company, with only about ten employees, has currently purchased multiple Coding Plans such as MiniMax, GLM, DeepSeek, and Volcano Engine.

DeepSeek's new API pricing has set the weekday peak price at double the off-peak price, and on August 23, the weekend was changed to be a full-day off-peak price. SmartCode's Coding Plan also calculates quotas based on time, with model calls during non-peak hours receiving a 50% deduction based on basic points consumed.

Some comments below the original post expressed discontent that humans are now actively collaborating with AI to work during price-sensitive periods. However, some netizens mentioned that their company's boss has heard about similar practices and is contemplating whether to follow suit.