Ancient IBM wisdom (from 1979) that the bosses just straight up promptly forgot
Apparently a page from an internal IBM training manual. Some further attempts at source it
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Apparently a page from an internal IBM training manual. Some further attempts at source it
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.”
“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.
Back when tech is still dominated by hippies and not fascists.
I have bad news about IBM's past as regards fascists.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust
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.
Who universally became assholes.
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 people still were " is kinda the most boomer-ish thing you can say tho
Great. Then it's a good thing we were talking about critical thinking, not behavior - or reading comprehension.
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:
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".
meanwhile Albania
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.
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.
That's the neat thing, you can deny accountability by blaming the computer's decision
A COMPUTER CAN NEVER BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE
THEREFORE A COMPUTER MUST
NEVERMAKEAMANAGEMENT DECISIONsI 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.
Very meta
That's why board executives and business are so excited about it
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.
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!
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.
https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-era-of-the-business-idiot/
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.
TBF Management can barely make any management decisions either...
are are rarely held accountable.
As a US citizen, this logic need to be applied to corperations. The C_Os make all the decisions for the company, the Campany should not be held as responsible for the shitty actions of its Board. The Board should be held accountable for the companies actions be required to served by all the C_Os. I say served, I mean fines and prison time ,in all cases, as a fine is paid personally by the person and time is served aslo bu the person.
I know fine are just a temporary for "legal fo .a price" fine should be paid to hut them so Retirement accounts are taken, future earning are taken, income from salary+bonus at time of infraction are taken, and close loops of off shore accounts
Agreed except you better not touch my extremely meager retirement account for some shit the CEO did. I will go full uno bomber.
Thats where the legislation can put the lawyer talk in to address it is the personal accounts of the C_Os
This is sad, not humorous
Thou shall not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind.
Try to stop me.
That's alright, so far they haven't even come close
The computer can't be held accountable, but the programmer and operator can.
I could go on a whole thing about mission rules and command decisions here, but I'm sick of typing for the day.
So when is Musk getting held accountable for making a literal US funded Nazi waifu bot
When the humans win the class war against the lizards.
Lol what? I'm so out of the loop
A complete one-eighty nowadays..."As a highly paid "business" exec I have no ideas...computer, tell me what to do."
But a computer works for "free" so "not being held accountable" is even better!!
Midrange might, but mainframe users pay ongoing amounts to IBM for however much compute they use for the life of the machine
Sorry can’t hear you as AI brrs over hiring applications and performance reviews
I generally agree.
Imagine however, that a machine objectively makes the better decisions than any person. Should we then still trust the humans decision just to have someone who is accountable?
What is the worth of having someone who is accountable anyway? Isn't accountability just an incentive for humans to not just fuck things up? It's also nice for pointing fingers if things go bad - but is there actually any value in that?
Additionally: there is always a person who either made the machine or deployed the machine. IMO the people who deploy a machine and decide that this machine will now be making decisions should be accountable for those actions.
I believe those who deploy the machines should be responsible in the first place. The corporations who make/sell those machines should be accountable if they deceptively and intentionally program those machines to act maliciously or in somebody else's interest.
Tbf that leads to the problem of:
Company/Individual makes program that is in no way meant for making management decision.
Someone else comes and deploys that program to make management decisions.
The ones that made that program couldn't stop the ones that deployed it from deploying it.
Even if the maker aimed to make a decision-making program, and marketed it as so. Whoever deployed it is ultimately the responsible for it. As long as the maker doesn't fake tests or certifications of course, I'm sure that would violate many laws.
The premise is that a computer must never make a management decision. Making a program capable of management decisons already failed. The deployment and use of that program to that end is already built upon that failure.
You can't know if a decision is good or bad without a person to evaluate it. The situation you're describing isn't possible.
How is this meaningfully different from just having them make the decisions in the first place? Are they too stupid?
You can evaluate effectiveness by company profits. One program might manage a business well enough to steadily increase profit, another may make a sharp profit before profit crashes (maybe by firing important workers) . Investors will demand the best CEObots
Edit to add: of course any CEObot will be more sociopathic than any human CEO. They won't care about literally anything unless a score is attached to it
This... requires a person to look at the profit numbers. To care about them, even. I'm not really sure what you're getting at.
I think you're saying that computers can be very good at chess, but we are the ones who decide what the rules to chess are.
"No networked computers!" Colonial fleet high command standing orders
Cylons hate this little trick.
One of many reasons why I love BSG. As a retro-computing enthusiast, the idea that antique systems are naturally impervious to conventional digital attacks, just felt so validating.
The directors not going to like this
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 asked computer if I should read the article, it said no. Am I in an abusive relationship?
That is ridiculous, clearly. I’ll use mainstream search engine, tailor made to my needs, to make sure it cannot happen
Again, weapons without human in the loop needs to be against the Geneva convention, yesterday. Or articles of war , something. This is a tractable problem, that needs attention, now, It will not end well and can actually be (mostly, by honorable armies) fixed.
Geneva convention can only be applied on the nations who are coincidentally, not going around breaking them willy-nilly.
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.
You are essentially saying
"Management is essential, replace the common work force with AI"
Well...If I get fired, I will hold you accountable!
I hope you are in a job that an LLM can't do.
Why me??
I was saying what the post was telling me.
Sorry, typo. That was supposed to be "aren't" I didn't mean to wish obsolescence on you. Ed. No, I just phrased it confusing
your logic is flawed.
employees can be held accountable for their actions.
Then regular humans & local/personal AIs will be held accountable for still living.
Wait, what's the change when Skynet goes online again?
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.
I don't think this is wise at all.
Its just people putting into words their wish to be able to punish and appoint blame above their wishes to be pragmatic.
If software is better at something, there is no reason to be mad at that software.
More than that, the idea that the software vendor could not be held liable is farcical. Of course they could be, or the company running said software. In fact, they'd probably get more shit than managers who regularly get away with ridiculous shit.
I mean wage theft is the biggest form of theft for a reason, and none of the wage thieves are machines (or at least most aren't).
Almost everything you said here is wrong. Much of it dangerously so.
I like the part where you have no details or arguments, just vibes.
You don't reason someone out of a position they didnt reason themselves into, and I cannot figure out how to come to conclusions that incorrect. Just leaving a warning; my reply wasn't for you.
You're right about wage theft being common. So that's something.
This is pure pseudo intellectualism because you literally have no argument or point.
You have no reasoning and are projecting that onto me because you can't explain this opinion your feelings have brought you to.
I'm not willing to argue with you. I've argued this with you¹ a thousand times, you are not rational. Everyone who reads your shit knows what I'm talking about. Ask them.
¹perhaps with a different name and face, but otherwise indistinguishable. It gets tedious.
With the amount you've typed you could have easily typed a rationale. The truth is your opinions don't hold weight and have no good rationale. That is all.
The burden of proof is on you. Show me one example of a company being held liable (really liable, not a settlement/fine for a fraction of the money they made) for a software mistake that hurt people.
The reality is that a company can make X dollars with software that makes mistakes, and then pay X/100 dollars when that hurts people and goes to court. That's not a punishment, that's a cost of business. And the company pays that fine and the humans who mode those decisions are shielded from further repercussions.
When you said:
We need YOU to back that up. The rest of us have seen it never be accurate.
And it gets worse when the software vendor is a step removed: See flock cameras making big mistakes. Software decided that this car was stolen, but it was wrong. The police intimidated an innocent civilian because the software was wrong. Not only were the police not held accountable, Flock was never even in the picture.
A computer can 100% be held accountable. Someone made the decision to put a computer in charge. That person is 100% responsible.
Unless that person leaves and the system they implemented remains
Keep going up and up the chain of command. There is no situation where no one us responsible.
Ok, and you fired him, and the replacement… did they accept all the risk too?
If they accepted the job, absolutely yes. ignorantia juris non excusat.
Well, yes, except not for executives because they’re special. And they have golden parachutes.
But wow if I was to take over some of the VP roles I’ve seen with the risk they accept, there would be years of work just patching shit.
No, they absolutely are accountable - theoretically, owners (capitalist mostly) made sure of that, they (SB) hold CEO by their private parts very firmly & they could do a lot to them & even even directly to their personal wealth (in most countries that's the standard agreement that can be enforced via courts if need be).
But shareholders do what's best for them & their pov.
So if someone embezzled & they don't see a clear way to get the money back even paying half a golden parachute can make sense to them (they don't get extra work, the matter is closed immediately, and CEOs don't really get paid that much in the context of company/shareholders profits ... it's a different world where CEOs are mere workers and actual workers are factory equipment).
So, CEO are accountable, they just don't often get held accountable bcs it's never to, for, or by the public (and pubic values, common morals, etc).
That’s true, and but the part
Is the “special” part of it. If they were held accountable by their peers, their peers might also be held accountable. Class solidarity in action.
CEOs get held accountable by the SB, the whole point of having a MB is to let them deal with the pleb ("peers"). Shareholders are not the peers of CEOs, it's a master & dog situation.
Someone should take responsibility. If they don’t want to be responsible, they should not take the job.
That's how it should be, not how it is