A manager has responsibility for the team, how can an AI be responsible?
What does responsibility mean? How does it translate to actual work and skills?
Ask HN: When will managers be replaced by AI?
11–20 of 85 posts
Re: Ask HN: When will managers be replaced by AI?
#12This entire post is exhibit A on why managers are essential and will likely not be replaced by AI any time soon.
Re: Ask HN: When will managers be replaced by AI?
#13Replacing managers with AI was the premise of Manna: https://marshallbrain.com/manna1
Re: Ask HN: When will managers be replaced by AI?
#14IME most managers became managers because they preferred working with and helping organize people to creative contributions. I don’t see the need for any of these functions going away. I see productivity differences. Maybe the roles evolve.
I think the real question is how do we best harness the increased productivity? Logically speaking, if each person is 5x as productive because of AI there should be an equally greater capacity to get things done. Businesses aren’t just running out of work to do, right?
Re: Ask HN: When will managers be replaced by AI?
#15The easiest job to replace must be the CEO. Look at Musk. He's CEO of six companies (or so), yet has time to run DOGE and constantly post on X.
I mentioned this to someone the other day, and they rebuffed that part of what you get with a CEO is their network and their ability to network. AI won't replace that, at least not anytime soon.
I think this is true. There was an article on HN the other day about how Moderna has already re-organized its leadership structure around AI.
It makes sense to me that AI could conceivably already be as good at making the hard, data-based decisions that CEOs make, and that, therefore, they could one day be replaced by AI. Meanwhile, you've got the soft skills part of being an executive, which humans are better at (as long as the people they deal with are also humans). So, you could split that CEO role into two parts, each specializing in half of what a CEO today does. Both roles would probably do a better job than the median CEO today, and get paid less overall.
But that "not anytime soon" part is the only thing I disagree with. Because I just don't know how long the timeline is for stuff like that. It can change pretty fast.
Re: Ask HN: When will managers be replaced by AI?
#16Large corporations are full of middle-managers who do not lead anything nor produce anything (customer facing) and whose only job is to "facilitate information flow" and "pull teams together" etc. I think these roles will be replaced with AI chatbots quickly. The upside (for the company) ought to be that now the facilitation should happen very quickly and is measurable/manageable more directly. The downside (for the…
How do we know that it's these types of managers who will be replaced, instead of the ones doing the actual work?
Re: Ask HN: When will managers be replaced by AI?
#17A manager has responsibility for the team, how can an AI be responsible?
A developer has responsibility for their code. How can an AI be responsible?
A writer has responsibility for their writing. How can an AI be responsible?
AI doesn't need to be responsible. It just needs to provide value, just like writers, developers, managers, etc.
Re: Ask HN: When will managers be replaced by AI?
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mentioned this to someone the other day, and they rebuffed that part of what you get with a CEO is their network and their ability to network. AI won't replace that, at least not anytime soon.
Why can't the board network while having the AI generate the big ideas for the last few workers?
CEO's typically make decisions when there isn't enough data to support the obvious direction. In this way, they are anti-pattern finders that rely on gut or some anecdotal experience. They are most often wrong, but when they are right and it's a success they are considered genius. I'm not sure an AI can make a non-obvious decision based on feeling.
Re: Ask HN: When will managers be replaced by AI?
#19The easiest job to replace must be the CEO. Look at Musk. He's CEO of six companies (or so), yet has time to run DOGE and constantly post on X.
I mentioned this to someone the other day, and they rebuffed that part of what you get with a CEO is their network and their ability to network. AI won't replace that, at least not anytime soon.
Just train it on linkedin (ew)
Re: Ask HN: When will managers be replaced by AI?
#20IME most managers became managers because they preferred working with and helping organize people to creative contributions. I don’t see the need for any of these functions going away. I see productivity differences. Maybe the roles evolve. I think the real question is how do we best harness the increased productivity? Logically speaking, if each person is 5x as productive because of AI there should be an equally gre…
Most managers are managers because they like having power and control. I can count the number of managers I have met on less than one hand who you can tell is a manager because they like helping and organizing people.