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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

#191

Post by jesuscript »

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’s AI going to do that better than a fellow human?

It will create metrics that will formalize a new paradigm. You know that arbitrary number in your bank account that defines you, that number on your report card, that rating on an Amazon review, that number that’s defining global inflation, that metric that measures interest rate, that number of hours you work …

The fucking lines of code, number of commits, points on a story, that SAT score, that rate people’s look if they are closer to a 5 or a 10 in beauty. Earnings per share, market cap, valuation.

Your age. AI will make so many bullshit metrics that I doubt society will know how to cope with it.

And management will use it, and you will be scared shitless and adapt. Or worse, you will dysfunctionally be unable to cope with the adaptation and be depressed.

“Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM”

^ Just replace IBM with AI metrics, and that will be the miserable life people will live out.

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

#192

Post by piokoch »

No, it will not. Maybe it will replace higher management some day. Long time ago Napoleon noticed that strength of an army depends on its corporals. The same with companies, tech leads, middle management makes a true difference - you might have the best strategy but without using proper tactics it will never succeed. And tactics, all those day to day activities, are managed by those people in the middle of management ladder.

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

#195

Post by vidarh »

alvis wrote: post #164
paganel wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The more robotic your message sound, the more people are compelled to comply. Thankfully that is not the case where I live (somewhere in Europe), but I can see what you describe becoming true in a very dystopic future. Does that AI also handle situations like “boss, would you be so kind to borrow me some money for 2, 3 days? Until the salary comes, that is, cause me and my SO are totally out of it”? Cause some of m…

I can imagine it can be a fintech opportunity. An AI that automatically performs a credit check behind the scene and lend you the money in advance, probably money in your account in seconds. It's not too hard actually.

There are several providers which offers salary linked loans and advances already, and one of the benefits is that when it's an advance on your salary there's no need to credit check the employee because it's the company which will pay it back when your salary is due.

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

#196

Post by fho »

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…

> bottom->up by ensuring workers enter data to be reported on correctly

Isn't this were management fails? Gathering the data that is required to decide well?

Eg my SOs company recently introduced the third generation of company wide management software, but as before nobody really used it and all important information is still collected in spreadsheets.

"AI management" could start out like Google Assistant, just have a button on your desk to set up reminders because it actually is easier than opening some application and typing in the reminder.

The thing is that it has to be extremly simple to do. Even thou I am not a fan of constantly listening devices, a company wide "OK Google/Hey Siri" would be extremly valuable.

Imaging two coworkers standing in the company floor: - "so about feature X?" - "arg ... yep ... I'll get it done by next week" - "Computer!?" - - "Create a reminder for [Coworker] to finish feature X by next week" -

This is literally not sci-fi straight out of Star Trek anymore, but something that (at least) I use daily to remind me of little things like getting the laundry from the basement :-)

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

#197

Post by cgrealy »

makeitdouble wrote: post #166
cgrealy wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree that encouraging a sick employee to work is all kinds of messed up, most countries impose a limit on sick days. At that point, you need to talk to the employee and figure out a solution.

The limit on sick days only matters for payroll decisions (what bucket will the day off fit in, paid leave or unpaid leave?). IME that's handled directly by the employee most of the time when they request the day off in the system. The manager gets involved at performance evaluation time, or if it has severe otherwise impacts (you're then asking the person to potentially leave), but I don't see the "figure out a solu…

It’s not just about “asking someone to be less sick”, you need to ascertain if there are other factors: are they over worked? is there a serious condition that you might need to support? Or conversely, is the sick leave legitimate? Some employees do abuse sick leave.

Either way, a good manager can work with the employee to get a good outcome for both parties.

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

#198

Post by madsbuch »

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…

I think this is spot on. However, I think the author is half right: Middle management is probably going to be replaces, but I don't think it is by AI, but by competitive incentive structures -- its algorithmic governance anyways.

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

#199

Post by Blackstone4 »

I am middle management....a big part of my job is understanding my juniors needs and enabling them to do their jumps by promoting their cause with the leadership. Secondly I lead the hiring and ongoing training of staff...not sure how AI is going to do all this...

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

#200

Post by negamax »

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…

Most of the low-weak managers rely on data. That's how their affirm their decisions to wider group. AI can totally be a better data predictor and user than humans. If all a manager do (middle or higher) is collect and interpret data, they should be replaced by a program
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