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Some of my coworkers will complain that management is short-sighted for trying to automate programming work they don't understand then immediately suggest we au

Some of my coworkers will complain that management is short-sighted for trying to automate programming work they don't understand then immediately suggest we automate management because nobody knows what they do all day. Maybe they're right, maybe not, but it is ironic.

superjan 2mo ago
Careful what you wish for…
bee_rider 2mo ago
They are currently experimenting with replacing engineers with LLMs, so it would at least be interesting to try the flipped experiment. It seems like, at least for tasks like distilling the work done at lower levels and passing it up the management tree, LLMs should be good at that. Maybe they could take out some levels at least. And they can be programmed to be 100% selfless and on-mission: no turf battles or other internal politics. Everybody’s job involves office politics of course, but my gut says management has a lot more of it than engineering, so zeroing that out could be more significant.
- harikb 2mo ago
  Aren't LLM's mostly overconfident? If they are independent entities/agents, they may be tempted to try to sabotage the less performing teams to take over their projects - just like in human world.
- robotresearcher 2mo ago
  The models are trained on data that encodes hundreds or thousands of years of turf battles and office politics. The model is shaped by the script of ‘Succession’, the history of the English monarchy and the Chinese Communist Party, and the biographies of Steve Jobs and Alexander Hamilton… The models don’t generate what’s right and good: they generate what people are likely to generate.
  - bee_rider 2mo ago
    They managed to fine-tune models to be good at math and coding, despite the vast majority of humanity being awful at those… I dunno. You are probably right. But it’d be an experiment. It wouldn’t be an experiment if it was a sure thing.
    - palmotea 2mo ago
      >> The models are trained on data that encodes hundreds or thousands of years of turf battles and office politics. The model is shaped by the script of ‘Succession’, the history of the English monarchy and the Chinese Communist Party, and the biographies of Steve Jobs and Alexander Hamilton… > They managed to fine-tune models to be good at math and coding, despite the vast majority of humanity being awful at those… Think about the kind of people who are leading the companies making these models, and their underlings who will be leading the fine tuning. Math and coding are fairly objective. Fine tuning for morality and ethics is going to reflect the biases of those people.
- overfeed 2mo ago
  > ...so it would at least be interesting to try the flipped experiment Trying to replace the foot-soldiers of capital in a capitalist system would be bold, if one could raise the capital for the experiment.
  - Henchman21 2mo ago
    Sorry but MBAs are the foot soldiers. That doesn’t really describe the vast middle management layer, what the Gervais Principle calls “the clueless”, aka those who take the blame. Attempting to replace this layer is unwise in this system. Someone else would need to take the blame, and you can be sure it won’t be the sociopaths at the top. It’d be the losers who get the blame AND do the work. At this point the work would slow, then stop. Or at least that’s how I see things playing out? More interesting, to me, is what happens to the clueless in that scenario. Without work these folks would probably revolt?
overfeed 2mo ago
Hacker News is awash wirh people who believe many jobs are "bullshit jobs", based on nothing beyond lacking intellectual humility, and ignorance of what the jobs emtsil.

superjan 2mo ago

Careful what you wish for…

bee_rider 2mo ago

They are currently experimenting with replacing engineers with LLMs, so it would at least be interesting to try the flipped experiment. It seems like, at least for tasks like distilling the work done at lower levels and passing it up the management tree, LLMs should be good at that. Maybe they could take out some levels at least. And they can be programmed to be 100% selfless and on-mission: no turf battles or other internal politics. Everybody’s job involves office politics of course, but my gut says management has a lot more of it than engineering, so zeroing that out could be more significant.

harikb 2mo ago
Aren't LLM's mostly overconfident? If they are independent entities/agents, they may be tempted to try to sabotage the less performing teams to take over their projects - just like in human world.
robotresearcher 2mo ago
The models are trained on data that encodes hundreds or thousands of years of turf battles and office politics. The model is shaped by the script of ‘Succession’, the history of the English monarchy and the Chinese Communist Party, and the biographies of Steve Jobs and Alexander Hamilton… The models don’t generate what’s right and good: they generate what people are likely to generate.
- bee_rider 2mo ago
  They managed to fine-tune models to be good at math and coding, despite the vast majority of humanity being awful at those… I dunno. You are probably right. But it’d be an experiment. It wouldn’t be an experiment if it was a sure thing.
  - palmotea 2mo ago
    >> The models are trained on data that encodes hundreds or thousands of years of turf battles and office politics. The model is shaped by the script of ‘Succession’, the history of the English monarchy and the Chinese Communist Party, and the biographies of Steve Jobs and Alexander Hamilton… > They managed to fine-tune models to be good at math and coding, despite the vast majority of humanity being awful at those… Think about the kind of people who are leading the companies making these models, and their underlings who will be leading the fine tuning. Math and coding are fairly objective. Fine tuning for morality and ethics is going to reflect the biases of those people.
overfeed 2mo ago
> ...so it would at least be interesting to try the flipped experiment Trying to replace the foot-soldiers of capital in a capitalist system would be bold, if one could raise the capital for the experiment.
- Henchman21 2mo ago
  Sorry but MBAs are the foot soldiers. That doesn’t really describe the vast middle management layer, what the Gervais Principle calls “the clueless”, aka those who take the blame. Attempting to replace this layer is unwise in this system. Someone else would need to take the blame, and you can be sure it won’t be the sociopaths at the top. It’d be the losers who get the blame AND do the work. At this point the work would slow, then stop. Or at least that’s how I see things playing out? More interesting, to me, is what happens to the clueless in that scenario. Without work these folks would probably revolt?

overfeed 2mo ago

Hacker News is awash wirh people who believe many jobs are "bullshit jobs", based on nothing beyond lacking intellectual humility, and ignorance of what the jobs emtsil.