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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

#91

Post by richbell »

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…

> Notice how we don’t see those ads anymore? It’s because winning Jeopardy has nothing to do with providing health care and energy.

I thought it was because Watson was a marketing gimmick to make it seem like they had "AI", when in reality all they had was a bunch of disparate AI-related companies that they'd acquired.

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

#92

Post by Test0129 »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #51
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...

I'm fairly convinced JIRA can be managed by a well crafted expert system.

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

#93

Post by LesZedCB »

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #71
scifibestfi wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hello Human, If you're not in today, don't bother coming in tomorrow. Cheers, -AI

k. - Human worker.

reminds me of that joke Zizek likes to make about dating.

two lovers meet up at ones house for Netflix and chill, she takes out her vibrator and he takes his fleshlight. they put them together to let them do what sexual machines do, so now their obligation is fulfilled and they can enjoy conversation instead.

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

#94

Post by sakarisson »

Gigachad wrote: post #32
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…

In some ways tech can do better. It can constantly monitor many more details than a human can. It doesn’t give you a disapproving look when you take too many sick days but it does calculate a score showing over the month you got less done than your coworkers.

An objective report proving low performance doesn't do much to encourage the employee to improve.

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

#95

Post by JumpCrisscross »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #86
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…

I feel like a chatbot could do B just about as well and it scales.

> I feel like a chatbot could do B just about as well and it scales

Would I have a competitor with such convictions.

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

#97

Post by mjr00 »

andrewjl wrote: post #65
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, specifically, will AI be better at that than humans? AI cannot even reliably autocorrect this comment as I’m typing it. How is it going to convince Jack to switch his shift and come in to cover open on Sunday because Jill’s sister was in a car accident and Jill is watching her niece? How’s AI going to do that better than a fellow human? This is a solved problem by using surge pricing. It's a widespread practic…

> This is a solved problem by using surge pricing. It's a widespread practice with contractors today.

This solves the problem for situations where you have a large pool of workers with elastic hours for a job which requires effectively zero training... which is basically Uber, food delivery, and not much else.

Even something as entry-level as a Starbucks barista you can't just pull a random person off the street and expect them to open on their first shift. You really think surge pricing somehow is going to solve shift scheduling problems for flight attendants? Nurses? Operators of specialized heavy machinery at a meat packing plant?

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

#98

Post by bryanrasmussen »

scifibestfi wrote: post #50
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…

Hello Human, If you're not in today, don't bother coming in tomorrow. Cheers, -AI

aw no! Now I have to go update my LinkedIn profile!

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

#99

Post by b800h »

heavyset_go wrote: post #78

It's like we've learned nothing from the techno-optimist claim that work automation will give workers more free time to pursue their own desires. In theory, it might be able to at some point. However, in reality, the claim ignores the power structures that the automation/AI/tech doesn't dissolve, but only reinforces. Some people want to lord over other people, AI isn't going to make that go away without changing the…

And some people want and need leaders. It's not a matter of "letting it happen", it's a ore function of humanity. And in the absence of formal hierarchy you get informal hierarchy which is much worse and more tyrannical.

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

#100

Post by hinkley »

01100011 wrote: post #30
impalallama wrote: post #22

Oddly optimistic article despite the title, but lol no. middle-management is like analogous for bureaucratic bloat and politicking. It’s been a punch line for decades that middle managers suck and don’t actually do much. This like saying AI will finally eliminate paperwork, dmv lines, or pointless meetings. The Inefficiencies are built in and Hierarchical structures of a traditional company Necessitate someone betwee…

"AI" is making some amazing advances these days. It's fueling quite a bit of optimism and outright delusion. It's getting a bit tiring to read through all the hype.

Does anyone have a good summary or book recommendation about non bullshit progress in the field?
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