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

291–300 of 379 posts

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

#291

Post by trashtester »

baxtr wrote: post #120
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…

I think we are still debating what “AI” really stands for. I believe most people intuitively think AGI whenever AI is mentioned. Once we have AGI - still out a few decades I guess - we could replace a lot more than just middle management. If we’re talking non-AGI AI (for lack of a better term) I don’t see why it’s any different than introducing tools that merely compute faster than a human, just like Excel for exampl…

Excel (MS Office in general) replaced similar roles, such as secretaries and accountants. A couple of decades earlier, computers replaced human "computers" (which used to be a role description for people doing various calculations by hand).

AI has already replaced some types of managers, such as most branch managers in banks, who were mostly doing credit worthiness assessments.

Middle management is not going to disappear suddenly, I thin, but rather be thinned out gradually. Manager roles that perform tasks that are easy to automate can over time get fewer responsibilities. For instance, managers in supermarkets may be taken out of the loop for most operational work, such as product placement in shelves, store layout, accounting/budgeting, and with improved AI there can even be automation of tasks such as supervising cleanliness, removal of past-due items, etc. All-in-all, this may cut a job that used to require a full position (and perhaps an assistant on top), to maybe 50% or 30%. This frees up time for the manager to either do other tasks. This can be either regular grocery clerk duties at the same location or it could be that a single manager may manage 2-3 locations.

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

#292

Post by rocqua »

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.

The predictive planning _could_ be done with AI that tries to automatically infer what will be bought. However, it could also be done by a (maintained) list of hard-coded rules. If it was some form of automatic inference, perhaps one could call it AI.

I simply don't think a hand-designed decision tree for a specific task can be called AI.

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

#293

Post by trashtester »

TheLoafOfBread wrote: post #258
BlargMcLarg wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing in your example couldn't be done by a bot . I'm certain you can make a case for middle managers, but your current one is weak.

In theory we don't need testers for program testing, we just need an AI to do it. But it is easier to say it, than to implement it.

I suspect it is easier to automate the programmer than the person doing/defining the tests.

I would argue that "programming" in essence is first and foremost the task of defining a set of actions or functions you want a computer to perform. This can be highly detailed (like assembly) or quite abstract (like SQL), and with AI you may even end up being able to just use English.

You will still need to check that the output matches your expectations, though.

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

#294

Post by johnward »

firefoxd wrote: post #141
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…

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.…

I worked for the Watson group. It was largely a marketing play which did land with some enterprises but is ultimately a failure because the tech was not there.

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

#295

Post by trashtester »

shock-value wrote: post #35

This is a poorly reasoned or at least a poorly articulated essay. AI to this point is built to optimize some objective function. What is that function with respect to middle management? Some sort of mathematical expression would be interesting but even a plain-English expression would certainly be helpful. And what exactly are the inputs and output? I guess the inputs could be a roster of employees along with some pe…

> What is that function with respect to middle management?

It's probably easier to create such a function for the CEO and board. For instance some risk weighted present day value of future net earnings, possibly combined with short- medium term stock market value to please stock owners that have a shorter-than-infinite horizon for their ownership.

Once that is decided, mid level manager objectives reduces to whatever optimizes the CEO objectives.

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

#296

Post by trashtester »

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.

For a traditional bar, I agree. In places where the "bar" is not the primary attraction, such as sports arenas, concert halls or even some types of night clubs, the bar may be just a bottleneck where you may have to wait 5-15 minutes to order a drink during breaks. If you could order your drink on the phone, and have a robot (or even a waiter) serve it at your table, it may be quite convenient.

There could still be 1-2 bartenders in the bar in places where there used to be 5.

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

#297

Post by SergeAx »

germandiago wrote: post #241
SergeAx wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right and this is bad news, because AI middle management is still inevitable. Currenlty, AI more or less manages taxi drivers in different places around the world, also telesupport personnel and other positions like those. Every time it degrades to orwellian level of sick incentives and pure exploitation. And things will get worse, because it allows to maximize profits.

So from your writing I can extract: profit is bad and incentives to work are bad, no matter the improvement on the service or if people do it bc they found it an option? If you consider a job as exploitation, in the free world you can find another job, right? That is what I do: I will not work in what I think it is bad. But in my case at least that job should be very bad by all measures, bc there is no worst thing fo…

I am talking about concrete examples and consequent trend. Uber is fiddling with price hikes and "high demand areas" to make drivers work more. Yandex.Taxi in Russia gives drivers "let's go home" button to catch a ride towards their home, but before driver hits that button Yandex will give them a ride in the opposite direction - to increase total mileage. Those are just known facts, and there are lots less researched, like gamification, bonus payments for achievements, which are highly exploitable via collected datasets.

Something is done voluntary doesn't automatically means it is legal or ethical.

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

#298

Post by wruza »

willnonya wrote: post #285
wruza wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don’t have to blame AI for metrics that do not include comfort and job satisfaction. The effects you described are not inherent to AI but to goals that upper people impose on lower people through a pyramid of management. Everyone there cares about profits and efficiency, nobody gives a fuck about workers living on the edge. Maybe stripping this paradigm naked is a good thing and a way to something else.

You've reduced a large swath of humanity to propaganda talking points. The key point you fail to grasp is that this isn't going to be a stripping back but rather a consentration of power and focus around those you vilify. There will be less transparency and fewer chances for humanity to intervene on its behalf.

I’m aware of this point, but I don’t believe that our traditional system is based on a personal desire to make someone suffer. You see those in power as all-knowing all-controlling evil beings. I see them as the best at flimsily balancing on a shitty system that is built-in/inherent to humans. Only non-human rule can change it, imo, similar to how chess, go and starcraft bots can change how the game is played. Maybe your prediction is correct, but chances that we can master business “ourselves” to optimize it for human comfort and dignity are basically zero.

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

#299

Post by SuoDuanDao »

jesuscript wrote: post #231
AussieWog93 wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>“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 understa…

I don't think there's a 'will' about it... the people who grew up with social media at every age already have a mental health crisis that society wasn't prepared for.

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

#300

Post by ericmay »

I don't think AI will replace middle management. I think what we consider "middle management" is largely just going to go away over time because it's no longer required or cost-effective. AI replacing it is a big of an oxymoron. AI would just eliminate it, not replace it.
Post reply on HN