Well, I might get disliked for this opinion, but in some cases it’s perfectly fine for a computer to make a management decision. However, this should also mean that the person in charge of said computer, or the one putting the decision by the computer into actual action, should be the one that gets held responsible. There’s also the thing where it should be questioned how responsible it is to even consider the management decisions of a computer in a specific field. What I’m saying is that there’s no black and white answer here.
I’ve thought about this wrt to AI and work. Every time I sit in a post mortem it’s about human errors and process fixes.
The day a post mortem ends with “well the AI did it so nothing we can do” is the day I look towards… with dread.
I feel this way about things like companies, too. It must always be human beings that bear the personal responsibility for an organization’s crimes, not “the company” alone. When money can pay in lieu of personal responsibility, then there is no justice or accountability.
And when computers make all management decisions, let us not forget that managers told them to do so, lest we forget whom to hold accountable.
You know shit only flows downhill right?
I think what they meant is nobody in management cares if someone wants to hold them accountable
Bit it’s a nice picture, yeah
I don’t know, they all sure hate Luigi for some reason.
Probably not fans of Nintendo or something
Managers aren’t being held accountable for their management decisions either.
“Oh, I sacked our entire workforce and sold all the company assets, so the figures will look amazing this month.”
<one month later>
“Oh, the figures are down this month, a golden handshake!? Thank you very much.”
Most industries management fails upward. Definitely true in Pharma.
There are CEOs with a 20 year string of development failures, but they bring “vast experience”.
It depends, though.
There are cases where parts of a struggling company is worth less than the sum of its parts. At that point, the fiscally prudent option is to sell it off, either in one piece or multiple pieces. There are plenty of cases in American corporate history where the best option is to cut losses and leave a market.
That being said, I’m surprised that private equity is still allowed to be a thing given the massive disparity shown in how a lot of financial disparity in how a lot of private equity companies run their companies against their fiduciary responsibilities to their companies’ stockholders and bondholders.
Ah, from back when people still had critical thinking faculties in good working order.
ok boomer
That’d be my parents who are dead and consequently not present, but thanks for bringing that up whilst completely stumping me with your eloquent, constructive and incisive counterargument that in no way proves my point.
Back when tech is still dominated by hippies and not fascists.
I have bad news about IBM’s past as regards fascists.
At the time the computers were kinda newfangled and they tolerated some hippies over there in research.
The business part, well, yeah.
That’s not how you would describe IBM at any point in its existence.
This is as good an excuse as any to break out the ol’ IBM corporate songbook
Tech has always been suits at the top, hippies at best an annoying necessity because they know how to actually operate the machine.
“Back in the day”, IBM was all suits the entire way up and down the ladder. They were considered the company for 1960/70s button down dress code.
The hippie types were at MIT hacking on DEC machines.
I think that’s broadly true, but just because you work somewhere as oppressive as IBM doesn’t mean you don’t long to breathe the free air. I like to imagine some of the contributors to the IBM songbook felt trapped in their day job and grabbed at that as the only available creative outlet, and they had their own magnum opus that they were going to publish just as soon as they felt safe enough to take the leap. I can’t find any credits for the songs so maybe they did.
IBM in 1979 was the polar opposite of hippie or liberal. You’re thinking of later, younger outfits, Pirates of Silicon Valley types. IBM was white shirt, black tie, solidly stuck in their ways.
Pirates of Silicon Valley types
Who universally became assholes.
Reminds me of Woz’s old saying “Never trust a computer you can’t throw out a window.”
That became easier with phones huh.
Yes, really easy to throw cloud out the window
With clouds it’s easy, they are already outside the windows.
I don’t know, the smallest computer I have in operation is the sketchiest one.
Executives today:
This means if we put AI somewhere in our decision making, we can no longer be held accountable.
Isn’t that exactly why they do use them for management decisions?
Yup!
“I’m sorry but your contact is terminated because our management software designated your position as redundant and unnecessary. It wasn’t our decision to let you go, but it was our decision to begin using that software and it was our decision to program it to try to fire as many employees as possible, but it’s not our decision and therefore we can’t be held responsible. Goodbye.”
The same argument for cartels. “We didn’t all increase our prices to the exact same amount, we just paid a consulting company to tell us which price we should use. Of course our competitors used the exact same company, but that’s just a coincidence”.
Since when are managers held accountable? Is this new?
You know “accountability”, it’s when an executive fucks up and gets to retire early with a multimillion dollar golden parachute.
That’s the neat thing, you can deny accountability by blaming the computer’s decision
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I understand that there is always a fall guy. Even before AI was shoved everywhere, those really responsible for the problems they created were not held accountable and put the blame on a fall guy.
A COMPUTER CAN NEVER BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE
THEREFORE A COMPUTER MUST
NEVERMAKEAMANAGEMENT DECISIONs
I can only assume the very next slide said, “But having a computer make battlefield targeting decisions is A-OK!” /s
It’s just a little war crimes, it’s ok it’s ok.
promptly
Very meta
That’s why board executives and business are so excited about it
They can finally get rid of McKinsey and blame it on cheaper and faster trendy butthole logo of the month.
Why would they get rid of McKinsey? That would make dinner at the club super awkward!
It’s not my fault
I was just following ordersIt’s just company policyIt’s just a misstep in the algorithm
I’m sorry the computer said layoffs so… Get fucked.
Ai says you’re not a citizen. Deported.
Let’s be honest though, most managers, maybe ~60% could be replaced by AI. If you want evidence, think of anyone who goes to meetings, and those who go to meetings all day element 90% of meetings, at minimal. Those jobs shouldn’t exist. They are what people like Bezos/Musk believe should not exist.
Now, how does one get from being nothing, and never being in meetings to being someone making money… You can’t, unless you know someone. AI is an “American Dream” killer
Well that’s the exact reason these people are so horny for AI.
There are studies showing that LLM AI is competitive against human C suite managers. When issues like AI hallucinations are brought up, it turns out that human C suite managers also make shit up all the time.
One interesting thing they found was that AI doesn’t do as well if there is a shock to the economic system like Covid.
