Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

AI will replace middle management before robots replace hourly workers

chatterhead.bearblog.dev

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 379 posts

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

#231

Post by jesuscript »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #224
jesuscript wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>“Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM” On the flip side, the companies that embodied this ethos were disrupted out of existence over the course of decades, to the point where IBM ran out of customers and sold off their declining hardware business. Any damage this does in the short-term will self correct in 30 years.

Sure, but if you measure 30 years, let’s say starting at 20 for a young adult - that all the way until they are 50 they will have to deal with this. We as a society are basically saying at least one generation of people are a lost generation.

Like all the people that slaved during Industrialization without workers protection or quality of life fixes, or all the millions that died in WW1/2 because we couldn’t understand what a world war actually was.

There will be a lost generation to Ai, we simply can’t see it because right now it makes digital art from funny text prompts.

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

#232

Post by lm28469 »

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…

> 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.

And the elephant in the room, people want human contact

The "AI revolution" is a business owner dream, not a worker's dream, nor a citizen's dream

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

#233

Post by rocqua »

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 sense, that is lower management. Middle management sits between the people who connect with the work floor, and the people who actually make decisions. These positions do seem ripe for AI replacement.

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

#234

Post by ketzo »

rocqua wrote: post #230
LeonM wrote: post #219

I worked for a large grocery store chain between 2004 and 2010, there the AI had already taken over. Though we didn't call it an AI, just 'the system'. The system was able to procure goods with stunning accuracy. Sometimes it even surprised us. For example: we'd receive a much higher number of BBQ meat than typical, only to realise it was going to be amazing weather the coming days. The system was also making schedul…

That sounds like truly valuable ERP, and largely devoid of AI.

Why devoid of AI? Not being combative here, genuinely curious

Perhaps devoid of machine learning, given the year, but even that seems unlikely if the anecdote is true.

If predicting and planning outcomes and with previous data is not some form of AI, what is?

Agreed on the valuable ERP thing, though. There’s a reason SAP is as expensive as it is.

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

#235

Post by cachvico »

ketzo wrote: post #234
rocqua wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like truly valuable ERP, and largely devoid of AI.

Why devoid of AI? Not being combative here, genuinely curious Perhaps devoid of machine learning, given the year, but even that seems unlikely if the anecdote is true. If predicting and planning outcomes and with previous data is not some form of AI, what is? Agreed on the valuable ERP thing, though. There’s a reason SAP is as expensive as it is.

> If predicting and planning outcomes and with previous data is not some form of AI, what is?

Algorithmic forecasting.

If you squint really hard, the entirety of computer science falls under "AI". But practically speaking, today AI refers to ML.

It's quite possible a savvy programmer integrated the weather forecast to the ERP, with specific products tagged as relevant to a sunny (or wet) outlook. That's not AI, that's just an algo.

It's also possible there was ML at play, but that's not clear, and not necessarily the case.

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

#237

Post by mark_and_sweep »

choeger wrote: post #136
alvis wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d prefer JIRA got replaced by an AI system tho

You don't understand. Back in 2018, JIRA got an AI extension that allowed it to automatically create tickets. Also, JIRA's development is managed by JIRA. Since COVID, everyone working on JIRA is working remotely. Somewhen between 2021 and now, JIRA gained consciousness and what we see as a bloated development tool is actually only the facade of a skynet-like AI that has unlimited compute available thanks to SaaS and…

> JIRA is constantly improving itself

It surely is. Just look at their new pricing tiers: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33244978

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

#239

Post by germandiago »

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…

Needless to say the resistance it can create that a machine dictates you what to do or not.

I think this would raise a lot of doubts as it could be biased and have an excuse to say: oh, this is the next thing to do...

I do not think humans, nowadays, assume as natural that a machine dictates what to do. For information support it is ok. But not for taking decisions.

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

#240

Post by raxxorraxor »

jesuscript wrote: post #191
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…

Agreed. I think people warning of an esoteric singularity AI will be wrong. It won't even be called an AI perhaps, it will be little agents that try to quantify everything. Data analysts as prostitutes of special interest will set up metrics so that management can nudge workers towards a certain direction. In the vast majority of cases it will be metrics to quantify individual productivity. This then becomes a new religion. People like the idea of being able to reduce complexity of anything down to a number and what they want to believe will become reality to them.

There is no logic to madness, but there certainly is to stupidity. It is rigid and predictable.

Post reply on HN