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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

#51

Post by AndrewKemendo »

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…

Yeah I'm an AI maximalist and I don't see AI "management" in a 1:1 fashion happening.

However I can see some orthogonal scenario where an "AI" run company - whatever that means in the future - manages a bunch of contracts as a middleman/market maker, thus obviating middle management altogether and making it a world of freelancers.

So it could go that way...

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

#52

Post by grzm »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #49
tomrod wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have succinctly encapsulated my thoughts on AGI. AGI faces an extrapolation gap.

What is AGI?

Artificial General Intelligence

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_general_intelligenc...

> Artificial general intelligence (AGI) is the ability of an intelligent agent to understand or learn any intellectual task that a human being can.

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

#56

Post by picsao »

tomrod wrote: post #47
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…

You have succinctly encapsulated my thoughts on AGI. AGI faces an extrapolation gap.

No post body was provided.

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

#57

Post by shock-value »

Gigachad wrote: post #48
quirkot wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It reads like you are describing reporting. How many frowny faces were sent out at Store 123 last month for attendance? But the reason you need lower/middle mgmt is that the real question is "so what do we do to stop having these frowny faces?"

What the system does is the rostering system preferences the workers with the highest scores when assigning shifts. And I suppose makes this number viewable to the workers so they can see why they have to optimise.

The idea that an automated shift scheduling system (even if efficacious) could replace middle managers entirely is not credible.

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

#58

Post by abernard1 »

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 will AI figure out how to properly mill a part to spec knowing that failures will end the contract?

How will AI know the particular workarounds in the way laborers deal with ad-hoc problems in picking strawberries?

The answer to these questions and questions like them is: they won't. AI cannot deal with problems of physical presence, and the reason that AI will replace white collar workers is not because AI is particularly sophisticated, but because white collar management is particularly dumb.

AI will provide the role that the drinking bird provided for Homer Simpson. The cognitive dissonance in this scenario is believing that either management or white collar roles are advanced, when the opposite is true.

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

#59

Post by chii »

tomrod wrote: post #47
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…

You have succinctly encapsulated my thoughts on AGI. AGI faces an extrapolation gap.

but it's currently true because we don't have AGI.

An AGI would be able to solve the problem that currently are being solved by middle management - optimization and decision making in the face of incomplete information.

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

#60

Post by quirkot »

Gigachad wrote: post #48
quirkot wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It reads like you are describing reporting. How many frowny faces were sent out at Store 123 last month for attendance? But the reason you need lower/middle mgmt is that the real question is "so what do we do to stop having these frowny faces?"

What the system does is the rostering system preferences the workers with the highest scores when assigning shifts. And I suppose makes this number viewable to the workers so they can see why they have to optimise.

Ok, let's roll with that. If I'm Alice, why do I care about Bob's score? Why do I care about your system at all? I'm trying to pay rent and not work on my kid's birthday. WHO is going to explain why the frowny faces matter? That person is your middle manager
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