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AI will replace middle management before robots replace hourly workers

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Re: AI will replace middle management before robots replace hourly workers

#71

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

scifibestfi wrote: post #50
snowwrestler wrote: post #39

What does chess have in common with retail middle management? As someone who has managed a retail store and played chess, I can confidently answer: nothing. Remember when Watson beat Ken Jennings at Jeopardy? And then IBM saturated the airwaves with ads about how Watson was going to revolutionize industries like energy and health care? Notice how we don’t see those ads anymore? It’s because winning Jeopardy has nothi…

Hello Human, If you're not in today, don't bother coming in tomorrow. Cheers, -AI

k.

- Human worker.

Re: AI will replace middle management before robots replace hourly workers

#72

Post by gwm83 »

Some real anxiety in the comments here. I personally think this is a positive situation - one which could have been avoided if real human managers had a hint of empathy, humility, and understanding of their job : to be human conduits to a mechanical system.

I have had 3 or 4 great real human managers in my career. But that also includes at least a dozen horrible troll-drones. They deserve it. Give me nothing, get nothing. Even the real human ones were just buffering whatever they could before I quit.

Re: AI will replace middle management before robots replace hourly workers

#73

Post by 6510 »

abernard1 wrote: post #58
snowwrestler wrote: post #39

What does chess have in common with retail middle management? As someone who has managed a retail store and played chess, I can confidently answer: nothing. Remember when Watson beat Ken Jennings at Jeopardy? And then IBM saturated the airwaves with ads about how Watson was going to revolutionize industries like energy and health care? Notice how we don’t see those ads anymore? It’s because winning Jeopardy has nothi…

How will AI figure out how to properly mill a part to spec knowing that failures will end the contract? How will AI know the particular workarounds in the way laborers deal with ad-hoc problems in picking strawberries? The answer to these questions and questions like them is: they won't. AI cannot deal with problems of physical presence, and the reason that AI will replace white collar workers is not because AI is pa…

What if one was to prevent the managers from physically interacting with people. Basically a work from home manager without the video conferencing. He may only respond in predefined ways or define such ways. Whatever tasks remain that really seem to require a human can be done by consultants and some new job title.

Re: AI will replace middle management before robots replace hourly workers

#74

Post by gwm83 »

eru wrote: post #18
akomtu wrote: post #13

This may be true, actually. The reason middle managenent exists is because the greed-driven owners hate talking to justice-driven workers, but need them to do the work.

What makes you think workers are any less driven by material rewards than owners? People by and large like getting paid, and there's no shame in that.

He didn't claim that.

Re: AI will replace middle management before robots replace hourly workers

#75

Post by imgabe »

scifibestfi wrote: post #50
snowwrestler wrote: post #39

What does chess have in common with retail middle management? As someone who has managed a retail store and played chess, I can confidently answer: nothing. Remember when Watson beat Ken Jennings at Jeopardy? And then IBM saturated the airwaves with ads about how Watson was going to revolutionize industries like energy and health care? Notice how we don’t see those ads anymore? It’s because winning Jeopardy has nothi…

Hello Human, If you're not in today, don't bother coming in tomorrow. Cheers, -AI

woohoo, 4 day weekend!

Re: AI will replace middle management before robots replace hourly workers

#76

Post by spaceman_2020 »

Gigachad wrote: post #32
quirkot wrote: post #21

I think this article fundamentally misunderstands the core function of middle management. You can boil it down to 2 key tasks (on the front lines of a very large organization). a) Interpreting: either top->down by explaining and enforcing corporate policy on hourly workers or bottom->up by ensuring workers enter data to be reported on correctly b) "Encouraging": an employee calls in sick, again. Neither firing them o…

In some ways tech can do better. It can constantly monitor many more details than a human can. It doesn’t give you a disapproving look when you take too many sick days but it does calculate a score showing over the month you got less done than your coworkers.

Oh boy, I would love to work for a company where my boss monitors me constantly then sends me a daily score! /s

There is a human element to managing people that AI simply cannot do. A boss (good or bad) can change his behavior based on anything from office rumor to the way you look on a certain day. He can decide to go easy on you for a while because he heard through someone else that your dog died last week. He can simply look at you and decide that you look depressed and pull you aside and ask you what's wrong.

Human interaction and relationships are so complex and nuanced that no AI is going to replace it for a long, long time - until we have proper AGI at least.

The only thing I see AI doing is putting some proofreaders and crappy graphic designers out of business.

Re: AI will replace middle management before robots replace hourly workers

#77

Post by gwm83 »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #51
snowwrestler wrote: post #39

What does chess have in common with retail middle management? As someone who has managed a retail store and played chess, I can confidently answer: nothing. Remember when Watson beat Ken Jennings at Jeopardy? And then IBM saturated the airwaves with ads about how Watson was going to revolutionize industries like energy and health care? Notice how we don’t see those ads anymore? It’s because winning Jeopardy has nothi…

Yeah I'm an AI maximalist and I don't see AI "management" in a 1:1 fashion happening. However I can see some orthogonal scenario where an "AI" run company - whatever that means in the future - manages a bunch of contracts as a middleman/market maker, thus obviating middle management altogether and making it a world of freelancers. So it could go that way...

Good luck Mr/s/ Maximalist, why would we need you in a future where AI can preach its own worth?

Re: AI will replace middle management before robots replace hourly workers

#78

Post by heavyset_go »

It's like we've learned nothing from the techno-optimist claim that work automation will give workers more free time to pursue their own desires.

In theory, it might be able to at some point. However, in reality, the claim ignores the power structures that the automation/AI/tech doesn't dissolve, but only reinforces.

Some people want to lord over other people, AI isn't going to make that go away without changing the power structures that let it happen.

Re: AI will replace middle management before robots replace hourly workers

#79

Post by andrewjl »

abernard1 wrote: post #58
snowwrestler wrote: post #39

What does chess have in common with retail middle management? As someone who has managed a retail store and played chess, I can confidently answer: nothing. Remember when Watson beat Ken Jennings at Jeopardy? And then IBM saturated the airwaves with ads about how Watson was going to revolutionize industries like energy and health care? Notice how we don’t see those ads anymore? It’s because winning Jeopardy has nothi…

How will AI figure out how to properly mill a part to spec knowing that failures will end the contract? How will AI know the particular workarounds in the way laborers deal with ad-hoc problems in picking strawberries? The answer to these questions and questions like them is: they won't. AI cannot deal with problems of physical presence, and the reason that AI will replace white collar workers is not because AI is pa…

> How will AI figure out how to properly mill a part to spec knowing that failures will end the contract?

Can that be solved by using something like an error budget?

I can imagine it being a heavy lift to account for measurements and tolerances, especially for "odd"-shaped parts.

Re: AI will replace middle management before robots replace hourly workers

#80

Post by DonHopkins »

wefarrell wrote: post #45

This reminds me of an argument I got into at a bar with someone who claimed robots would inevitably replace bartenders. I took the view that bartenders would be the last occupation to be replaced by robots because if the goal was to minimize the cost to consume alcohol people wouldn't be coming to bars in the first place. There's a misconception that jobs with higher pay and more prestige will be the last to be repla…

And as robots replaced more jobs, more people would be going to bars.
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