I work at a large company that invested countless dev hours in building an automated shift scheduling system, then gave up, bought a scheduling system from a vendor, and has now spent several years tweaking that system to match their requirements. Guess what? It works OK when everything is fine, but if anything even mildly out of the ordinary happens and more than a few people are unavailable for any reason (year-end…
AI will replace middle management before robots replace hourly workers
351–360 of 379 posts
Re: AI will replace middle management before robots replace hourly workers
#352Companies are too stupid to get rid of middle managers (as a useless middle manager myself).
There is literally a generation of business leaders growing up believing crap they see on Linkedin whose only purpose is to make useless people feel needed.
Middle managers are here to stay for quite some time - at least until we have the same companies. And they have a lot of money to keep living the way they're living.
I think we can have companies without middle managers, but it will feel like working in 100 different startups instead of working in a single company.
I assume AI managers could automate DAOs (Decentralised Autonomous Organisations) and we might transition to a world where companies are basically all just DAOs
Re: AI will replace middle management before robots replace hourly workers
#353Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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
> The "AI revolution" is a business owner dream, not a worker's dream, nor a citizen's dream Yes, but since money is power, that's whose dreams get to be enacted.
Re: AI will replace middle management before robots replace hourly workers
#354This 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…
Wouldn't upper management be in charge of taking the decision of replacing upper management with AI? Or is this only applicable to small companies (or workers' cooperatives) that had access to these functions from their foundation?
Re: AI will replace middle management before robots replace hourly workers
#355I 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…
Re: AI will replace middle management before robots replace hourly workers
#356Earlier quoted context omitted.
I know what they mean, and it is an incorrect assessment with a great bias towards their own interests. The boss is another role. You can be a boss. Why not? Ah, it entails risks also: paying bills, managing, taking decisions, risk of going bankrupt... so when most people talk about expoitation they do not talk about the other side of things so that their complaints look legit. Also, working in an already setup envir…
Interesting, you only cover the options that exist in the current paradigm around a advanced economy where there are plenty of individual options that you are right most people don't explore. The weakness from my perspective in your argument is that the current economic structure you are describing and which we are living in, is by its very nature exploitative. It has deep historical roots in destroying any other mea…
Think of it. You are at home. Jump to the bed, do nothing. You die. Poor is the natural condition of the man. That is obvious.
Now think: if you must be provided something, and you do not work for it (I assume in conditions working by mutual agreement) you are just reversing things: the one who won't work is the one demanding and exploiting others' work in fact to live from them. There is no such thing as an exploiting salary. There is just someone offering something and you can either take it, negotiate or leave it. Bc if they pay u what u demand (did u ever see someone complain saying "my salary is too high?") probably the business cannot exist bc pol dnt use it for a higher cost. And if u work for them it is bc it is ur best alternative at the time.
So saying that not being payed enough is exploiting is totally absurd in free conditions. First, because you can find alternatives and second, because if I pay you something for your work (bc I give u support for getting customers, for example, with trchnology) you can leave it, take it, or build an alterbative. What you cannot do is to insult them just bc you want a bigger part and that generates a frustration feeling for you bc of your feeling of unjust. But if some people do it it is clearly bc it is their best alternative. I do not want to steal the food of those ppl. Whwn they find something better they will move on and customers have a service.
Re: AI will replace middle management before robots replace hourly workers
#357Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can imagine it can be a fintech opportunity. An AI that automatically performs a credit check behind the scene and lend you the money in advance, probably money in your account in seconds. It's not too hard actually.
Why the hell would you perform a credit check if someone who works for you needs some of their salary two days early? Would you stop paying their salary if the credit check came back negative? Of course that seems like exactly the pointless and counterproductive behavior one would expect from a badly designed automated system.
Badly designed automated systems are the life blood of our economy.
Re: AI will replace middle management before robots replace hourly workers
#358Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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
#359Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Are those trips not paid?
Re: AI will replace middle management before robots replace hourly workers
#360Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 discovere…
For any item in our stores we could get a list of other items that were commonly purchased together, for example. I'm sure it's even fancier nowadays.