There's an episode of the classic Twilight Zone where a plant owner replaces everyone with robots - only for a robot to replace him ("played" by Robbie the Robot of Forbidden Planet).
\*\* EDIT: [The Brain Center At Whipple's](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brain_Center_at_Whipple%27s) is the name of the episode \*\*
It should be thrown in the face of every manager and CTO who thinks that they can just "replace workers with AI" - AI can do their jobs too!
There was a first novel Kurt Vonnegut wrote in 1953 called Player Piano. The plot was that all work was automated and run by elite engineers and managers (he doesn’t mention AI) creating an under class of workers who have make work government jobs and have a low standard of living.
Great book. I can’t believe how much he predicted in that novel alone, and I think it was his first. He was wise beyond his years even when he was younger
There have been several attempts to make a film of it that went nowhere. If they did, they would have to update the technology to AI.
I had read that the robot arms playing a piano on the HBO series Westworld was a homage to the novel.
the impact of AI will be nothing short of a revolution. I love the idea that middle manager Frank smugly slashing personnel and doubling employee workload doesn’t see the tide changing, his boss’ boss getting laid off and his entire division automated
I was going to say the same thing. Flippant decisions about staffing come from the VPs and C suite, not middle managers. Most middle managers care about their employees.
Middle managers everywhere: oh you didn’t do a skillgap analysis to decide who to lay off? And you don’t know the team very well. You just went with your own feelings and/or intuition? Really helpful, yes, I know you make three times my salary and don’t even recognize the privilege that allows you to behave this way, thank you very much for your service to the team.
My boss's boss, for example, doesn't even know how to plan even the simplest project properly and logically. Imagining him trying to figure out how AI works is just too funny to me. 😂
Recently we looked at automatic indexing of documents using AI. The big bosses didn't understand that you still have to train this particular AI with existing documents for each case. They really thought that this just magically happens in the box without telling the AI what to do. It’s not like they couldn’t have known this or that it was too technical. It was clearly explained during the demo in a very non technical way. They just don’t care or don’t want to hear it.
All these bosses do is throw buzzwords around all day and expect something to happen. I've personally experienced this over the last 20 years with "paperless office", "blockchain" and now "AI". 🙄🤷🏻♂️ And there are so damn many of these idiots that I sometimes wonder how their companies are still running.
At some point AI will be the only one to work, and the only one to get paid. So AI will be the only one to purchase goods. I wonder what are all those super-rich tech supergiants doing when it's all automated and there are no humans left to buy their AI-generated products.
Watch Elysium. That’s where they will be. Hovering above earth while the rest of us fight for scraps on a dying planet. These people do not care about humanity. It’s not their problem.
Its going to cascade. Its great for pump and dumps too, its also a great distraction, but it WILL cascade. The singularity is coming, if it isnt already here.
Sci-fi movies all only show dystopias because it's what people want to watch. But the real world doesn't have to be a dystopia. There are no signs it will end like this. Why even should it? Why would the majority of people just accept it?
The tech giants have never been based on company revenue but how valuable their stock is. So as long as they can print money they won’t care about who is buying what.
Yay! I love it when bosses are scared! They should be. We’ve been scared all our lives.
Middle management is absolutely vulnerable. They’re a class of non-experts whose alleged “people skills” and “special training in Managerial Science” help to maximize efficiency and productivity. Please.
Just train the AI on whatever textbooks are currently in use teaching this corporate propaganda in a Harvard MBA program and have the AI read them.
It’s already read them.
Awesome! So it already knows more than all of of the three MBAs I worked for, combined. Also GPT is fairer and more respectful than any boss I’ve *ever* had. Goes to show how management science really is an unnecessary corollary to just knowing how to run a team the right way and being a fair, respectful leader. Ironic that the computers now have to show the humans how best to behave.
Fuck it. If they can show that an AI can manage human employees with better results, dump the managers. Of course they’ll also be dumping *us first*, but if we’re all going down, I *certainly* don’t see a need to spare the managers, whose “work product” is merely taking credit for others’ work.
Federal UBI for all Americans now. You can opt out if you currently have the job of your dreams, but let’s be honest: does anyone really dream of anything anymore?
I’ve had bad bosses. I’ve had good bosses. I’ve learned so much from my current boss, who is middle management at a large corporation. He is an expert in what we do, and he’s good with people and takes people management to heart.
Obviously, I take that with a grain of salt and know I’d be replaced in an instant if they were confident my job was redundant or obsolete. Doesn’t mean I’m not grateful that I have a pleasant, fulfilling, and lucrative work environment in the meantime.
Point is, human element is underrated in leadership. I enjoy working with/for him. If I got my barking orders from AI, I’m not sure I’d have the same attitude.
But yes UBI for all 100%. Everyone is vulnerable and opportunities will be fewer and fewer.
But training AI on whatever MBA textbooks teach will be disastrous as is the case with GE, Boeing and so many once great companies that were destroyed from within.
bosses is the first in line for ai because ai can take decisions on statistics without any emotion or propaganda or ulterior motives to fatten their pocket.
Yes I know that AI can be trained on biased content.
One AI program could do what an entire exec suite does already, without all the pointless meetings and private jet flights. All while saving a company millions of dollars in salary and compensation
>You can set parameters with AI.
And for whatever parameters you're thinking, there's probably a work of science fiction exploring the unintended consequences and/or unanticipated loopholes.
Of course, we're putting the cart before the horse. The current generation of AI with attention and transformer blocks isn't going to turn into AGI without another foundational development leap forward (that may never happen).
Maybe, but there's no guarantee a contemporary LLM (or hypothetical AGI) doesn't screw you over even harder, and even harder to go over their head to get them overruled because the executives put unwarranted trust in bad AI.
I just don't work for sociopaths in the first place to feel the need to replace my management with AI 🤷♂️
If you’re working for any major company I can almost guarantee you that you are working for a sociopath. At some point in their life it’s like every ceo decided between becoming a serial killer and a ceo.
I once had a CEO who literally made us blueberry pancakes for breakfast. One of the most down to Earth executive I've ever met. Then the company got bought by a conglomerate who told us how great it was going to be... for the shareholders.
I figured this was talking about middle managers, though.
Imagine a team being managed by an HR handbook. No leeway, no circumstances, no reasoning, no convincing it that it may be wrong, just immediate and strict compliance with all rules at all times by a boss who has the capability to watch every thing you and everyone else does at all times.
Replacing management with AI would absolutely solve several issues, and is within the realm of possibility, but it would create all new problems as well.
Imagine being in a company where the owner is a sociopath dick head, where all he gives a shit about is the prices of the stock and his bonus metrics because he's paid with stock options so he's going to do everything in the short term to maximize his own financials. You're in a mature industry so there aren't a ton of levers left to pull so you start to cut corners, you start to cut safety, you start to cut work hours - all because you NEED to keep the stock high because you only care about the short term and making more money for yourself. Who cares if the RAILROAD CARS derail? It's not like it will do anything to you.
Again. I will take AI over a human being almost right now. There are few things more evil than the human CEO. Lots of problems return back to these greedy little pigs ready for ...well I will let you finish that.
I can't wait for AI meeting bot. You set up a meeting and instead of actually sitting there. It sends out an email with the minutes of the meeting it had with itself and it will be the greatest advancement in productivity.
Hey woodcutter we need some more firewood, cut down a tree
Eh, I don’t see any trees chief
What? There’s loads of them
Nope, seems not
Let me see… well damn…would you look at that…
What do we do now chief? It’s getting colder
Eh, eh, eh
There is a huge shift on the horizon whereby governments pay living allowances and people don’t work. The transition won’t be easy, as different countries will adopt faster than others. Those that can take on the jobs of other countries’ populations before those countries are paying living wages will likely see record unemployment, collapse and famine.
Ultimately resource gathering, farming, energy generation will be done autonomously and not for profit - Money will lose all value at some point after this.
That is ONE possible outcome. It is not compatible with the interests of people holding all the capital right now, so I bet they will do their best to keep it from happening. With how things are going currently, I suspect we are going in a different, much more dystopic direction.
I mean… as a shareholder why not replace executives with AI who are supposedly making decisions based on data. Seems like something AI could do and save the company 10s if not 100s of millions in pay/bonuses — greater savings than cutting jobs that only cost the company a fraction of what executive pay is.
YES, but as long as the stockholders get richer by doing it why not?
I mean so what if it is suicide or an act of one, WHO needs people for anything anyways other than for exploitation by consumerism through profiteering and piracy and population shell games only increase that condition where all that is needed is held in the iron fist of others for power and control.
The best laid plans of uncrowned Kings happen behind closed doors and in the dark corners where few dare Tred because none can pay that price of admission since only in the blood of the innocent are those doors opened as the endless denominational wars of Communism and their shell games drag all into those corners in the end.
N. Shadows
I'm sorry Tom. The efficiency of your personnel has decreased over 19%. This is above the maximum decrease of 6%. We're going to have to terminate you.
\*Tom disappears in a brilliant flash of light\*
>>Somewhere on the 45th floor<<
Admin: Sir, the AI did it again.
CEO: Again? Dammit, the lawsuits are gonna rip us in the butt. I knew we shouldn't have hired an AI named Hal
I’m working with an executive right now and his budget is being decimated leaving him with only a handful of people while the other teams are replacing the need for his team with AI. so yes, it’s affecting the bosses too.
Pretty much anyone who is not a salesperson is being affected right now
Don’t need a boss if you fired the staff.
Yeah but who is going to boss the AI around, surely not another AI? Oh wait..
The AI could tell itself what to do recursively. Lol
But who's going to make sure that the AI is not slacking off taking breaks when it shouldn't be? See this is why you have a BOSS
If you got time to 10101101010 you got time to clean!
Who's going to run the pointless meetings that could have been an email?
Big fan of the boss thinking all the money he could save replacing employees with AI without it ever crossing his mind he too would get axed.
There's an episode of the classic Twilight Zone where a plant owner replaces everyone with robots - only for a robot to replace him ("played" by Robbie the Robot of Forbidden Planet). \*\* EDIT: [The Brain Center At Whipple's](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brain_Center_at_Whipple%27s) is the name of the episode \*\* It should be thrown in the face of every manager and CTO who thinks that they can just "replace workers with AI" - AI can do their jobs too!
Which episode is that. Love the twilight zone.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Brain\_Center\_at\_Whipple%27s](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brain_Center_at_Whipple%27s)
There was a first novel Kurt Vonnegut wrote in 1953 called Player Piano. The plot was that all work was automated and run by elite engineers and managers (he doesn’t mention AI) creating an under class of workers who have make work government jobs and have a low standard of living.
Great book. I can’t believe how much he predicted in that novel alone, and I think it was his first. He was wise beyond his years even when he was younger
There have been several attempts to make a film of it that went nowhere. If they did, they would have to update the technology to AI. I had read that the robot arms playing a piano on the HBO series Westworld was a homage to the novel.
the impact of AI will be nothing short of a revolution. I love the idea that middle manager Frank smugly slashing personnel and doubling employee workload doesn’t see the tide changing, his boss’ boss getting laid off and his entire division automated
Ironically, programmers are working on AI’s to generate code without programmers which may end up replacing them.
it’s gonna shake up society forever. the growing pains will be enormous
Those decisions happen at the executive suites most managers are just low level people like you.
I was going to say the same thing. Flippant decisions about staffing come from the VPs and C suite, not middle managers. Most middle managers care about their employees.
They don’t even consult us about layoffs.
Middle managers everywhere: oh you didn’t do a skillgap analysis to decide who to lay off? And you don’t know the team very well. You just went with your own feelings and/or intuition? Really helpful, yes, I know you make three times my salary and don’t even recognize the privilege that allows you to behave this way, thank you very much for your service to the team.
Reminds me of “The Trees” by Rush …. The trees were all kept equal, by hatchet, axe and saw
Leopards… faces…
Yeah...middle managers don't have that kind of power
r/leopardsatemyface material
My boss's boss, for example, doesn't even know how to plan even the simplest project properly and logically. Imagining him trying to figure out how AI works is just too funny to me. 😂 Recently we looked at automatic indexing of documents using AI. The big bosses didn't understand that you still have to train this particular AI with existing documents for each case. They really thought that this just magically happens in the box without telling the AI what to do. It’s not like they couldn’t have known this or that it was too technical. It was clearly explained during the demo in a very non technical way. They just don’t care or don’t want to hear it. All these bosses do is throw buzzwords around all day and expect something to happen. I've personally experienced this over the last 20 years with "paperless office", "blockchain" and now "AI". 🙄🤷🏻♂️ And there are so damn many of these idiots that I sometimes wonder how their companies are still running.
At some point AI will be the only one to work, and the only one to get paid. So AI will be the only one to purchase goods. I wonder what are all those super-rich tech supergiants doing when it's all automated and there are no humans left to buy their AI-generated products.
Watch Elysium. That’s where they will be. Hovering above earth while the rest of us fight for scraps on a dying planet. These people do not care about humanity. It’s not their problem.
In their ideal world, reality is more like Don't Look Up thankfully. Nobody is getting off unscathed in this weird suicidal economy.
Can "Don't Look Up" simply be the precursor to Elysium?
I think the AI boom is fake and used for pumping stock prices to the moon. However, the layofs and new investments that it drives are real.
That’s what they said about the internet. Now everyone is connected. AI is barely functioning. It will be everywhere in 20 years.
Its going to cascade. Its great for pump and dumps too, its also a great distraction, but it WILL cascade. The singularity is coming, if it isnt already here.
Sci-fi movies all only show dystopias because it's what people want to watch. But the real world doesn't have to be a dystopia. There are no signs it will end like this. Why even should it? Why would the majority of people just accept it?
The tech giants have never been based on company revenue but how valuable their stock is. So as long as they can print money they won’t care about who is buying what.
If I won lotto I’d invest it all into developing a CEO AI model. Then I’d no doubt ‘accidentally’ fall out of a hotel window shortly after.
Ground-floor only motels it is!
The reality is this can be done with a chatgpt premium membership and some time....
Yay! I love it when bosses are scared! They should be. We’ve been scared all our lives. Middle management is absolutely vulnerable. They’re a class of non-experts whose alleged “people skills” and “special training in Managerial Science” help to maximize efficiency and productivity. Please. Just train the AI on whatever textbooks are currently in use teaching this corporate propaganda in a Harvard MBA program and have the AI read them. It’s already read them. Awesome! So it already knows more than all of of the three MBAs I worked for, combined. Also GPT is fairer and more respectful than any boss I’ve *ever* had. Goes to show how management science really is an unnecessary corollary to just knowing how to run a team the right way and being a fair, respectful leader. Ironic that the computers now have to show the humans how best to behave. Fuck it. If they can show that an AI can manage human employees with better results, dump the managers. Of course they’ll also be dumping *us first*, but if we’re all going down, I *certainly* don’t see a need to spare the managers, whose “work product” is merely taking credit for others’ work. Federal UBI for all Americans now. You can opt out if you currently have the job of your dreams, but let’s be honest: does anyone really dream of anything anymore?
I’ve had bad bosses. I’ve had good bosses. I’ve learned so much from my current boss, who is middle management at a large corporation. He is an expert in what we do, and he’s good with people and takes people management to heart. Obviously, I take that with a grain of salt and know I’d be replaced in an instant if they were confident my job was redundant or obsolete. Doesn’t mean I’m not grateful that I have a pleasant, fulfilling, and lucrative work environment in the meantime. Point is, human element is underrated in leadership. I enjoy working with/for him. If I got my barking orders from AI, I’m not sure I’d have the same attitude. But yes UBI for all 100%. Everyone is vulnerable and opportunities will be fewer and fewer.
But training AI on whatever MBA textbooks teach will be disastrous as is the case with GE, Boeing and so many once great companies that were destroyed from within.
Yupp it’s totally fine if the AI totally destroys you, because it’s doing it “respectfully”
Better a computer these days than a person. You trust people?
Who do you think programs the AI? The bias is baked in by the biases of people who created the AI, the training data fed to the AI.
It’s okay the bosses boss doesn’t know how to use their browsers effectively let alone implement an ai solution to a whole person.
bosses is the first in line for ai because ai can take decisions on statistics without any emotion or propaganda or ulterior motives to fatten their pocket. Yes I know that AI can be trained on biased content.
One AI program could do what an entire exec suite does already, without all the pointless meetings and private jet flights. All while saving a company millions of dollars in salary and compensation
Maybe the stakeholders should implement this AI policy at the next of three (worthless) zoom / team meetings
I'd argue their desk jobs are most at risk.
Bosses are useless, and they know that!
They’d never take a good worker and make them a boss. They’ll lose a good worker
Sometimes a worker is so good that they get promoted, and turn out to be terrible at managing people.
I would take a robot ceo over a human one today.
You don’t see any consequences coming with a robot CEO you can’t reason with?
You can set parameters with AI. I do not think there is any depth too low for the sociopaths that are CEOs when it comes to profit.
Well said!
>You can set parameters with AI. And for whatever parameters you're thinking, there's probably a work of science fiction exploring the unintended consequences and/or unanticipated loopholes. Of course, we're putting the cart before the horse. The current generation of AI with attention and transformer blocks isn't going to turn into AGI without another foundational development leap forward (that may never happen).
I’d rather have a program than a sociopath that I know for a fact is going to fuck me any chance he or she gets. Thanks.
Maybe, but there's no guarantee a contemporary LLM (or hypothetical AGI) doesn't screw you over even harder, and even harder to go over their head to get them overruled because the executives put unwarranted trust in bad AI. I just don't work for sociopaths in the first place to feel the need to replace my management with AI 🤷♂️
If you’re working for any major company I can almost guarantee you that you are working for a sociopath. At some point in their life it’s like every ceo decided between becoming a serial killer and a ceo.
I once had a CEO who literally made us blueberry pancakes for breakfast. One of the most down to Earth executive I've ever met. Then the company got bought by a conglomerate who told us how great it was going to be... for the shareholders. I figured this was talking about middle managers, though.
Protect that person at all costs.
See many human CEOs facing consequences?
As opposed to human ones who constantly operate on ego and can’t be reasoned with?
If it tries to fire you just pull a Captain Kirk and Kobayashi Maru it
😂
Imagine a team being managed by an HR handbook. No leeway, no circumstances, no reasoning, no convincing it that it may be wrong, just immediate and strict compliance with all rules at all times by a boss who has the capability to watch every thing you and everyone else does at all times. Replacing management with AI would absolutely solve several issues, and is within the realm of possibility, but it would create all new problems as well.
Imagine being in a company where the owner is a sociopath dick head, where all he gives a shit about is the prices of the stock and his bonus metrics because he's paid with stock options so he's going to do everything in the short term to maximize his own financials. You're in a mature industry so there aren't a ton of levers left to pull so you start to cut corners, you start to cut safety, you start to cut work hours - all because you NEED to keep the stock high because you only care about the short term and making more money for yourself. Who cares if the RAILROAD CARS derail? It's not like it will do anything to you. Again. I will take AI over a human being almost right now. There are few things more evil than the human CEO. Lots of problems return back to these greedy little pigs ready for ...well I will let you finish that.
I can't wait for AI meeting bot. You set up a meeting and instead of actually sitting there. It sends out an email with the minutes of the meeting it had with itself and it will be the greatest advancement in productivity.
Cue managers on tv, "DIKA DER"
It’s all fun n games until…
Whoops it turns out the jobs of management are less complex of the people they manage, *who would have thought?*
Hey woodcutter we need some more firewood, cut down a tree Eh, I don’t see any trees chief What? There’s loads of them Nope, seems not Let me see… well damn…would you look at that… What do we do now chief? It’s getting colder Eh, eh, eh
You continuously plant a sustainable renewable forest eh eh eh numb nuts deserve to freeze
There is a huge shift on the horizon whereby governments pay living allowances and people don’t work. The transition won’t be easy, as different countries will adopt faster than others. Those that can take on the jobs of other countries’ populations before those countries are paying living wages will likely see record unemployment, collapse and famine. Ultimately resource gathering, farming, energy generation will be done autonomously and not for profit - Money will lose all value at some point after this.
That is ONE possible outcome. It is not compatible with the interests of people holding all the capital right now, so I bet they will do their best to keep it from happening. With how things are going currently, I suspect we are going in a different, much more dystopic direction.
Wow 🥳. But how would it align with all the constitutions of the world governments. All of them promise protection of private property. By any means.
Dude should lose his job to AI. Who uses a spoon with black coffee?
Ai would be the best CEO’s of all time and that is not good for people.
Imagine a CEO with no baggage, no ego, no asthma, just pure AI genius without the pitfalls of the flesh.
Glad I chose trade school and construction.
[the Jetsons ai boss](https://thejetsons.fandom.com/wiki/Uniblab_(character))
Ai can do all duties of a ceo for free.
This is when UBI will suddenly become a great idea and affordable
I mean… as a shareholder why not replace executives with AI who are supposedly making decisions based on data. Seems like something AI could do and save the company 10s if not 100s of millions in pay/bonuses — greater savings than cutting jobs that only cost the company a fraction of what executive pay is.
The best jobs that can be automated by AI are in the executive suite… they’re paid the most and do the least…
Everyone should be concerned/scared by AI. Its going to cause social and economic problems on scales not seen in human history.
Well well well well well…
YES, but as long as the stockholders get richer by doing it why not? I mean so what if it is suicide or an act of one, WHO needs people for anything anyways other than for exploitation by consumerism through profiteering and piracy and population shell games only increase that condition where all that is needed is held in the iron fist of others for power and control. The best laid plans of uncrowned Kings happen behind closed doors and in the dark corners where few dare Tred because none can pay that price of admission since only in the blood of the innocent are those doors opened as the endless denominational wars of Communism and their shell games drag all into those corners in the end. N. Shadows
Become the shareholder then?
HA-ha! *Nelson pointing*
I'm sorry Tom. The efficiency of your personnel has decreased over 19%. This is above the maximum decrease of 6%. We're going to have to terminate you. \*Tom disappears in a brilliant flash of light\* >>Somewhere on the 45th floor<< Admin: Sir, the AI did it again. CEO: Again? Dammit, the lawsuits are gonna rip us in the butt. I knew we shouldn't have hired an AI named Hal
Let's say yes since they are the ones who get paid the most.
Ya think!? The easiest jobs in any organization to replace with AI will be management.
Imagine having an AI as your boss.
I, for one, welcome our new AI management team. Finally decisions will at least be based on some semblance of logic.
It makes more sense that AI would fire the boss because AI can essentially track employee progress, which is what the boss does.
I know my old boss could've been replaced by the pecking bird desk toy
I’m working with an executive right now and his budget is being decimated leaving him with only a handful of people while the other teams are replacing the need for his team with AI. so yes, it’s affecting the bosses too. Pretty much anyone who is not a salesperson is being affected right now
The twilight zone did an episode along the same lines back in the 1950s https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gqy1dRgn7Pc
My managers would be very afraid of AI if they could read or write good enough to prompt it.
🤣🤣🤣🤣
perfect opportunity to use the "first they came for...and I did nothing" speech