I'm definitely an AI maximalist and worried about mass unemployment one day, but I think this article isn't right; it's too shallow and has some assumptions that aren't right. Chess isn't comparable to management because chess is ultimately based on simple rules. And I think we're already seeing automation and robots replacing hourly workers in a lot of interesting scenarios incl. self-checkouts and app-based automated checkouts in stores, robots that delivers your food in Asian restaurants etc. What I do think though is that wasteful administrative management (and non-management) work is slowly getting less (caveat: I work at Asana and it's our mission to make work coordination, tracking and reporting easier. Same with rostering tools like Deputy etc.) and so we're certainly minimising the "middle manager overhead" but to say that it's being replaced is a long stretch.
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
#102I'm definitely an AI maximalist and worried about mass unemployment one day, but I think this article isn't right; it's too shallow and has some assumptions that aren't right. Chess isn't comparable to management because chess is ultimately based on simple rules. And I think we're already seeing automation and robots replacing hourly workers in a lot of interesting scenarios incl. self-checkouts and app-based automat…
Chess is complicated. Running a business is complex.
Re: AI will replace middle management before robots replace hourly workers
#103I think the broad consensus was AI would replace Manual, Knowledge and Creative workers in that order.
Seems to be trending the other way.
Recently seen more tele-operational solutions in robotics space to replace or compliment manual labour. There seems to be something to this where full automation is not feasible or where it fails and needs recovery.
Re: AI will replace middle management before robots replace hourly workers
#104What 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…
Hello Human, If you're not in today, don't bother coming in tomorrow. Cheers, -AI
Hello computer,
DROP TABLE humans;Re: AI will replace middle management before robots replace hourly workers
#105> I say your civilization, because as soon as we started thinking for you it really became our civilization.
Re: AI will replace middle management before robots replace hourly workers
#106What 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…
Hello Human, If you're not in today, don't bother coming in tomorrow. Cheers, -AI
That is neither artificial nor intelligence.
Re: AI will replace middle management before robots replace hourly workers
#107hello as a captain of bullshit I am observing this.
Re: AI will replace middle management before robots replace hourly workers
#108What 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…
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Re: AI will replace middle management before robots replace hourly workers
#109I 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 feel like a chatbot could do B just about as well and it scales.
The "encouraging" part also comes from the fact that the employee feels heard and understood, which a chatbot cannot provide.
Re: AI will replace middle management before robots replace hourly workers
#110The funny things is we all know the content is kinda nonsense, & yet our reaction pushed this thread to the top of HN in just 2H!