Need some examples on how such an AI would work. Is there any existing AI that does that and what were the effects?
Cant just slap AI on a topic and call it a day...
AI will replace middle management before robots replace hourly workers
181–190 of 379 posts
Re: AI will replace middle management before robots replace hourly workers
#182This is maybe more of a semantic disagreement, but I would expect the frontline manager, not middle management, to be the first in management to shrink in population on account of AI. If software and AI is to be made more responsible for managing the hourly worker, then naturally your frontline manager should be capable of managing more humans at once, thereby reducing the company's need for frontline managers. As a result, managers can be made responsible for more people at once, teams can be larger, and fewer frontline managers being needed.
However, claiming that management will be affected "before" the hourly employee is an invalid prediction in today's age. The hourly employee has already been disproportionately affected by AI, some even made obsolete by robots or automation. Retail (especially brick & mortar) has already seen many of those jobs be replaced by much less sophisticated advancements (ecommerce, d2c, etc), arguing to the contrary would be impossible to back up at this point.
Re: AI will replace middle management before robots replace hourly workers
#183What 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…
Watson was a stunt. It's not very hard for someone on HN to figure out how much of Watson was Watson. The crowd still bought it. But as someone who worked on software that handled the last example you gave, I assure, a few well placed if and elses do the trick. Also, humans have tendency to follow any instructions sent to them when it is titled "System" or "Administration". *System Message:* New revised schedule for.…
> Also, humans have tendency to follow any instructions sent to them when it is titled "System" or "Administration".
Really? I tend to not even read them. That might a bad idea, but that's the way my instincts go.
Re: AI will replace middle management before robots replace hourly workers
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Neither of these are low hanging fruit for automation The Uber app already does both of these things. Encouragement is done via gamification and adjusting pricing and the app itself collects all the data it needs and explains everything the driver needs to know.
Ah yes, the Uber app. Because all work is as simple and collaborative as going to a particular point to pick up a passenger, everybody dreams of working for a worker-friendly organization like Uber.
What they are saying is that for some jobs, it's already like this, so it's not completely out there to consider it expanding as tech gets better. Uber being good or bad is besides the point.
Re: AI will replace middle management before robots replace hourly workers
#185What 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…
You apparently haven’t heard of a neural networks
Re: AI will replace middle management before robots replace hourly workers
#186Unlikely 1 middle management cost lets say $20k plus insurance for 1 person where as 20 hourly worker's cost $10k x 20 = $200k. Business will always try to go for decreasing the bigger expense. Another thing most people don't seem to get small business are 70-80% of the worlds economy so the middle management does not exist or is the boss family or friend.
Re: AI will replace middle management before robots replace hourly workers
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
In what dystopian country do you live where you don't automatically get the day off when calling in sick?
Calling in sick regularly is often a sign of some other problem. Any competent manager will encourage an employee to either deal with that problem or arrange for help. In a dystopia, the manager will indeed ignore that problem and 'encourage' the worker to come to work. I believe this style of management can be replaced by an AI quite readily, and I believe this has already happened by rather trivial software (think…
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Re: AI will replace middle management before robots replace hourly workers
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are middle managers either?
People love to shit on middle managers, but I can say all the ones I worked under (as a SWE, at the one company) were all smarter and more experienced than I was, and I really appreciated the mentorship.
Great. Mine asked their employees how they could help with tasks they knew 0 about, try to solve technical and political issues by playing team therapist, and couldn't even read the Scrum guide deep enough to know what is and isn't part of it.
Anecdotes are great, aren't they?
Re: AI will replace middle management before robots replace hourly workers
#189I find it interesting that the conversation herein is about the viability, as opposed to whether or not this is a desired outcome.
Personally, I welcome every outcome where machines replace the roles people undertake (myself included). A fascinating and painful set of possibilities emerge. People, indeed societies will need to re-examine their definitions of "work", "purpose", "success" and all sorts of other things.
Perhaps we'll step forward to a post-humanist/adamist economy. Perhaps we'll enter a randist/gattacist society. Maybe a commerce-free world is created - or maybe time becomes a fixed currency? Maybe all, or none of the above are true. But ultimately, for the progression of our societies, I'd love to see these conversations.
Re: AI will replace middle management before robots replace hourly workers
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> I think upper management will be replaced by robots before middle management. You are already correct. In a sense, the highest level of management is the shareholder/owner. Capital allocation is one of the most highly automated tasks currently. We see this with SAA (Strategic Asset Allocation) programmes being run across all major capital managers and owners.
How is that an example of AI replacing management? The AI might determine what to invest in and thus who the owners of a company are, but humans still need to make decisions for the company.
Less humans involved per decision.