AI will replace middle management before robots replace hourly workers • Hacker News Board

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

#341

Post by baxtr » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 7:16 PM UTC

trashtester wrote: post #291

baxtr wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 disap…

> Excel (MS Office in general) replaced similar roles, such as secretaries and accountants.

If Middle Managers were similar they would have been replaced by Excel too, wouldn’t they? Either they aren’t similar or analogy doesn’t work.

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

#342

Post by butyeg8 » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 7:36 PM UTC

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?

By not being a fellow human?

I’m in my 40s. 27 year old masters in math (finished HS early). Have disassembled and reassembled cars, built houses, worked as a line cook, helped deliver and raise livestock, brewed beer at scale, grown food at scale, and worked in hardware eng, now software for 12-ish years.

Many people do not need a babysitter organizing logistics. They’re not doing a better job prioritizing for me than I do myself with deep experience across contexts. Often they just confuse the details as experts in Kanban charts and Jira but not engineering.

I’ll happily respond to an AI feeding me todos based upon some verifiable societal logistics need. I’m tired of being helicoptered by people who are there to satisfy the “job culture” meme.

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

#343

Post by HideousKojima » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 7:37 PM UTC

dopidopHN wrote: post #325

HideousKojima wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The PPP adjustment is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Real (non-PPP adjusted) GDP per capita in the US is ~50% higher than France's.

Correct. In the context of productivity, I think a 'per hour' metric is more appropriate. France and western Europe in general have comprehensive social nets that will allow a larger part of the population to be idle/unemployed. A GDP per capita will be lower for all those places. I think we don't really care if a country is deciding to support non-productive citizen. Here, we want to compare the productivity of peop…

Yes, but even your "per hour" metric is massively distorted by being adjusted for PPP (i.e. local cost of living, etc. which is somewhat subjective and why you'll find drastically different indexes for PPP from different sources. Even if it could be reliably measured it's still different then a measure of raw production). The average American only works ~7% more hours per week than the average Frenchman, but the GDP output per capita (without adjusting for PPP) is about 50% greater, which means American GDP per hour worked is way higher than French GDP per hour worked.

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

#344

Post by cgrealy » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 8:10 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #254

makeitdouble wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Google "Bradford factor". Employers absolutely will ask employees to be less sick.

I'm sure they do. But my response to any employer who did that would be to start polishing my CV.

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

#345

Post by cgrealy » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 8:19 PM UTC

makeitdouble wrote: post #264

cgrealy wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I completely agree with you on the overworked part, though it's a delicate situation if you're their direct manager and have to rely on them to report how much work they are doing. It happens (a lot more than we're willing to accept I think), and it becomes more a discussion on management than on the employee per se. On the other parts, it might be a cultural difference: I'd expect all of those to be handled by HR. F…

> it might be a cultural difference: I'd expect all of those to be handled by HR.

Possibly. Generally, I'd only involve HR as a last resort. Go to them for guidance, certainly, but in terms of dealing with an employee, I prefer to talk to them directly.

> [abuse of sick leave]

Completely agree that it's a delicate situation and you need to be very careful, or (in some countries depending on employment law) you could be open to a claim of wrongful dismissal.

All of which is why I don't expect an AI to take over people management roles any time soon.

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

#346

Post by SergeAx » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 9:17 PM UTC

marcosdumay wrote: post #329

SergeAx wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> but before driver hits that button Yandex will give them a ride in the opposite direction - to increase total mileage Isn't that good for the driver?

Since Yandex virtually khows from collected data when the driver going to go home, it effectively gives driver extra ride in the wrong direction and then longer ride in the right direction, makes driver literally make extra miles.

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

#347

Post by dopidopHN » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 9:35 PM UTC

HideousKojima wrote: post #343

dopidopHN wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. In the context of productivity, I think a 'per hour' metric is more appropriate. France and western Europe in general have comprehensive social nets that will allow a larger part of the population to be idle/unemployed. A GDP per capita will be lower for all those places. I think we don't really care if a country is deciding to support non-productive citizen. Here, we want to compare the productivity of peop…

Yes, but even your "per hour" metric is massively distorted by being adjusted for PPP (i.e. local cost of living, etc. which is somewhat subjective and why you'll find drastically different indexes for PPP from different sources. Even if it could be reliably measured it's still different then a measure of raw production). The average American only works ~7% more hours per week than the average Frenchman, but the GDP…

Sorry you lost me there. Can you point that out in the numbers? Also I realised that I don't understand what you mean by PPP adjusted. I thought we were talking about adjusting GDP per capita vs per hours.

Oh, Purchasing Power Parity. I see.

Well, I disagree here but that out of my depth. I think without adjustment those metrics would measure how your currency is faring on the currency market. Not the house you can buy, the food you can put on the table and so on.

But I see your point, if we talk about productivity, we should compare Apple to Apple and not "Adjusted Apple" to "Apple".

It also depends who is seen as the repository for this productivity. The worker? Or the economy.

If it's the later we should talk in USD with a date on it. I agree.

If it's the worker, well, I care about what I can buy with the money deposited in my bank account, not what I could buy if I was living in Hungary or Japan. Then PPP make sense. It's also common practice in statistic to harmonize your data in order to make meaningful comparison.

Last thing on your last comment, I really think the GDP per capita make little sense here. Labour input is defined as total hours worked of all persons engaged in production. A GDP per capita is not measuring that.

> the GDP output per capita is about 50% greater

Let find the same thing per hours worked, without PPP adjustment.

Well, PPP is apply to every data I found. But this more recent trend might make you feel better. On 2010-USD + PPP, france went to 102 while the US is at 107. ( On the 2017-2021 period )

https://data.oecd.org/lprdty/gdp-per-hour-worked.htm

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Here is my anecdotal and personal experience. I spend half of my life in France, and the other in the US. Quality of life is comparable. French works less. Their country is not crumbling. Heck, it's in pretty good shape infra-wise. They have billionaire and large mega corporations as well if that's a metrics. I pay similar taxes here and there.

Maybe french are annoying enough to get away with it? Maybe they are living on credit. Idk. But also maybe the US worker are being abused and stretch tin for diminishing returns. Is that worth it for such a slim difference?

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

#348

Post by naijaboiler » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 9:39 PM UTC

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…

Correct. Middle management is pretty much all human management. AIs are miles miles away from being able to do that. AI make good middle management even more critical, by removing the non-human aspects of the job

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

#349

Post by naijaboiler » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 9:41 PM UTC

negamax wrote: post #200

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

This is a very naive take on what middle management is

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

#350

Post by commandlinefan » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 9:42 PM UTC

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.

> devoid of AI

I guess that depends on what you consider AI. In his example of "good weather -> more BBQ stuff", of course that might be some particular hardcoded rule that occurred to a human at some point, but it's far more likely that datamining identified that particular correlation, and many others (like the famous example of the grocery store that started stocking beer next to diapers when data mining discovered that beer and diapers were often bought together).