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I think we are still debating what “AI” really stands for. I believe most people intuitively think AGI whenever AI is mentioned. Once we have AGI - still out a

by baxtr 4y ago

I think we are still debating what “AI” really stands for. I believe most people intuitively think AGI whenever AI is mentioned. Once we have AGI - still out a few decades I guess - we could replace a lot more than just middle management. If we’re talking non-AGI AI (for lack of a better term) I don’t see why it’s any different than introducing tools that merely compute faster than a human, just like Excel for example. Did Excel replace any middle manager? Hell no. It helped them to thrive!

byw 4y ago
I'm generally curious if there are any numbers about this. Something like managers per employees over the decades.
- ChainOfFools 4y ago
  Peter Drucker argued (with data) in the late 90s that the entire edifice of computing had yet to return a total positive return on business as a whole. basically claiming that if one subtracts total cost including things like the brain drain of minds which would normally funnel into advanced business and management schools to comp sci programs, and the tendency for advances in individual firms' efficiencies to cross cancel in a competitive market, not to mention actual hardware/software costs, then business and by extension consumers are paying an ongoing tax to support computing, which is not returned even equally as improved services and goods.
  - marcosdumay 4y ago
    > which is not returned even equally as improved services and goods It's not returned in revenue. Nobody has even the faintest idea about what is the effect on non-consolidated services and goods.
heresie-dabord 4y ago
AI or AGI -- Artificial General Intelligence -- The human fantasy about human intelligence and automation that is used to make marketing language thrilling and may also serve as a plot element in fiction and cinema. Proponents may obtain a Ph-antasy D-egree to improve their influence. An as yet unexhausted domain of hyperbole and confusion. ML -- Machine Learning -- The somewhat more modest attempt to name what we are really doing. Ph-antasy D-egree not required but may improve influence. Muddled terminology introduced to sow confusion about what are really just regression and clustering algorithms. Automating regression and clustering algorithms -- What we are really doing.
trashtester 4y ago
Excel (MS Office in general) replaced similar roles, such as secretaries and accountants. A couple of decades earlier, computers replaced human "computers" (which used to be a role description for people doing various calculations by hand). AI has already replaced some types of managers, such as most branch managers in banks, who were mostly doing credit worthiness assessments. Middle management is not going to disappear suddenly, I thin, but rather be thinned out gradually. Manager roles that perform tasks that are easy to automate can over time get fewer responsibilities. For instance, managers in supermarkets may be taken out of the loop for most operational work, such as product placement in shelves, store layout, accounting/budgeting, and with improved AI there can even be automation of tasks such as supervising cleanliness, removal of past-due items, etc. All-in-all, this may cut a job that used to require a full position (and perhaps an assistant on top), to maybe 50% or 30%. This frees up time for the manager to either do other tasks. This can be either regular grocery clerk duties at the same location or it could be that a single manager may manage 2-3 locations.
- baxtr 4y ago
  > Excel (MS Office in general) replaced similar roles, such as secretaries and accountants. If Middle Managers were similar they would have been replaced by Excel too, wouldn’t they? Either they aren’t similar or analogy doesn’t work.

by baxtr 4y ago

byw 4y ago

I'm generally curious if there are any numbers about this. Something like managers per employees over the decades.

ChainOfFools 4y ago
Peter Drucker argued (with data) in the late 90s that the entire edifice of computing had yet to return a total positive return on business as a whole. basically claiming that if one subtracts total cost including things like the brain drain of minds which would normally funnel into advanced business and management schools to comp sci programs, and the tendency for advances in individual firms' efficiencies to cross cancel in a competitive market, not to mention actual hardware/software costs, then business and by extension consumers are paying an ongoing tax to support computing, which is not returned even equally as improved services and goods.
- marcosdumay 4y ago
  > which is not returned even equally as improved services and goods It's not returned in revenue. Nobody has even the faintest idea about what is the effect on non-consolidated services and goods.

heresie-dabord 4y ago

AI or AGI -- Artificial General Intelligence -- The human fantasy about human intelligence and automation that is used to make marketing language thrilling and may also serve as a plot element in fiction and cinema. Proponents may obtain a Ph-antasy D-egree to improve their influence. An as yet unexhausted domain of hyperbole and confusion. ML -- Machine Learning -- The somewhat more modest attempt to name what we are really doing. Ph-antasy D-egree not required but may improve influence. Muddled terminology introduced to sow confusion about what are really just regression and clustering algorithms. Automating regression and clustering algorithms -- What we are really doing.

trashtester 4y ago

Excel (MS Office in general) replaced similar roles, such as secretaries and accountants. A couple of decades earlier, computers replaced human "computers" (which used to be a role description for people doing various calculations by hand). AI has already replaced some types of managers, such as most branch managers in banks, who were mostly doing credit worthiness assessments. Middle management is not going to disappear suddenly, I thin, but rather be thinned out gradually. Manager roles that perform tasks that are easy to automate can over time get fewer responsibilities. For instance, managers in supermarkets may be taken out of the loop for most operational work, such as product placement in shelves, store layout, accounting/budgeting, and with improved AI there can even be automation of tasks such as supervising cleanliness, removal of past-due items, etc. All-in-all, this may cut a job that used to require a full position (and perhaps an assistant on top), to maybe 50% or 30%. This frees up time for the manager to either do other tasks. This can be either regular grocery clerk duties at the same location or it could be that a single manager may manage 2-3 locations.

baxtr 4y ago
> Excel (MS Office in general) replaced similar roles, such as secretaries and accountants. If Middle Managers were similar they would have been replaced by Excel too, wouldn’t they? Either they aren’t similar or analogy doesn’t work.