Slashdot Mirror
Even the CEO's Job Is Susceptible To Automation, McKinsey Report Says (networkworld.com)
colinneagle sends word that according to a new report it's not just blue collar workers who need to be concerned about being replaced with a robot, top execs should be worried too. According to Network World: "Global management consultants McKinsey and Company said in a recent report that many of the tasks that a CEO performs could be taken over by machines. Those redundant tasks include 'analyzing reports and data to inform operational decisions; preparing staff assignments; and reviewing status reports,' the report says. This potential for automation in the executive suite is in contrast to 'lower-wage occupations such as home health aides, landscapers, and maintenance workers,' the report says. Those jobs aren't as suitable for automation, according to the report. The technology has not advanced enough."
The actual non-clickbait article http://www.mckinsey.com/Insigh... says: "For example, we estimate that activities consuming more than 20 percent of a CEO’s working time could be automated using current technologies."
That's called a tool, rather than a threat to a CEO's job.
Seeking to manage synergy through actionable enterprise wide initiatives with all shareholders in the loop. This will drive market capitalization through our managed shareholder proxy model and improved salesforce engagement pilots. Customer satisfaction is a priority and therefore will be a prime driver of profit margin in the upcoming quarter. We expect to take a one-time write down of fiduciary costs related to acquisitions and duly reported on form X-11.
(include ginormous "forward looking statement" boilerplate here)
Actually, given our current crop of sociopathic CEOs, the humanity would actually probably be higher.
Yes, automation can wipe out most jobs in manufacturing, production, computers, law, medicine, etc, etc. So it's time to start thinking about how we will obtain the necessities (and niceties) of life. We will be a fabulously productive and rich country but all the money will go to the top, the owners of the automation companies. So now it's about the post-scarcity society perhaps as illustrated in Star Trek. But for real, Finland is now working on the idea of a national guaranteed income. This may upset the puritan types who think that hard work is somehow connected to morality. You know, dancing is sinful because it's too much fun.
So yes, this means taking money from the extremely wealthy and providing an income and services to those who are not. Is this socialism? No, not the Marxist version anyway because that means the ownership of the means of production by the state. But this definitely is redistribution of wealth, just as has been done by every nation on the face of the earth in all of recorded time.
"He took a duck in the face at 250 knots." -- William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
What will happen is the CEO will do even less work, and reap in more money than before. Fired? Lmafo! I've heard straight from the lips of more than one CEO that the goal is to set everything up so they have absolutely nothing to do.
One of the last vestiges of the Old Boys Network is company boards, where even after making a wreck of the world economy and a few decades of screaming for reform has yield squat: the SEC prosecutes with a velvet glove and shareholders are either scheming themselves or left wondering what the next golden parachute will do to the stock price. It's easy to make 4000% more than the underlings when all your CEO friends sit on other corporate boards as well.
No one sane believes that most CEOs are worth what they are paid, and their performance has proven that mostly correct. Shareholders can't even make inroads at disciplining executive pay, so I sincerely doubt most executives are at risk of losing their jobs.
What I can see is maybe automation playing the role of the 8 year old adviser, correcting the most egregious fuckups that come down the pike (which will be a vast improvement) but short of armed revolt the moneyed class will not go quietly into the night.
I've often suggested offshoring our CEOs. After all, there must be plenty of good CEOs in places such as India, just like there are plenty of good code jockeys there, right? I don't see automating the CEO job for a while yet. Today, at least with multinational corporations, you still need a person to go rub shoulders with the local warlords or prime ministers in order to handle the requisite "processing fees". Computers and robots don't yet handle bribes with as much aplomb as meatspace CEOs do. But let's get some offshored CEOs and save a bundle of money.
My father has long worked in a variety of CEO and president roles for different large companies, on the very fields that this software is designed to optimize. My thoughts?
1) This is nothing new. It's called operations research/operations management, and it's been around for a long time.
2) Except for in perhaps small companies, CEOs don't do this themselves. They direct the team of experts that manage the system.
3) The systems don't run themselves. They require significant setup, maintenance, and ongoing improvement. In particular the ever-changing data streams that can play a role need to be worked into the model. And they're often based on very complex issues that require specialist understanding.
These are tools that help you make the right decision. They're not people. People are the ones who run the tools.
The yellowcake is a lie.
Why would you need a human at the top for negotiations?
Even if the other guys insist on meeting face-to-face; someone who has reasonable charisma, isn't an idiot; and knows how to wear a suit and an unobtrusive earpiece should be a great deal cheaper than a CEO; and an attractive UI for Our Expert System Overlords.
If doing so makes people uncomfortable, there is no need to actually remove the human face from the company; the question is just how much you actually need its input vs. how much it is just a thin layer of tissue designed to facilitate interaction with humans; like the C-level equivalent of the poor bastards who read scripts at you if you try to call a company on the phone.
CEOs operating for the long term good of their corporation instead of pumping their stock short term to get a stock option payout would be a marked improvement.
This will only happen when they can make robots powered by cocaine.
ralphbarbagallo.com
Imagine that if the source code for CEO were available for the SCC, FTC, etc. to examine, it would be glaringly obvious what kinds of unethical behaviors were being programmed in. Well, at least there'd be more of a market for Obfuscated C programmers...
I don't think so. I looked up golfing robots, and although there is one that has a lot of google hits, it does not appear to me that it actually golfs, but merely hits balls on the driving range and trash talks other golfers.
I'd say the CEOs job is pretty safe.
Also, the only point in getting rid of the CEO would be cost reduction, and companies are not actually interested in cost reduction. They just want to do whatever Management Weekly says to do and also keep their cronies and brother-in-laws employed.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Wrong.
There have been numerous long-term studies that did exactly that, gave everybody in a community a guaranteed income regardless of whether they were working.
Such studies happened all around the world, generally over 5 and 10 year stretches. The most famous ones in North America was Nixon's 5 year study in Detroit and the MinCome experiment in Canada.
Quite a lot of things universally happened when they did this - a sudden inflation rise was not among them, in fact - no study anywhere has recorded one. It just doesn't happen, because guess what, raising prices would not be beneficial to businesses. You have all those people who now have money, that they didn't have before, you want them to spend it with you so you make more money - the best way to do that is to keep your prices THE SAME - and increase your customer base massively.
A few other things happened every time:
1) Entrepeneurship skyrocketted. People were starting new small businesses like never before. A lot of unemployed people suddenly found employment by working for themselves, and were soon employing others leading to
2) Unemployment rates dropped like a stone.
3) Productivity went UP - this may seem surprising but not only were more people working, everybody was achieving more on the job.
Did anybody JUST live on the money given by the state ? Actually yes, two groups could be found doing that at any given time:
1) Mothers of newborns who often chose not to go back to work for a year or more. This is a GOOD thing - no different to what countries like Denmark actually encourage with legislation
2) Students- lots and lots of people were suddenly enrolling in further education, since they had a way to support themselves they would leave the job market temporarily, gain some new qualifications and return to a higher salary bracket. This was especially prevalent in young adults in their 20s - and the largest increase was among those from the poorest backgrounds who frequently could not otherwise have afforded further education.
All the bad things you predict though ? Not a single one of those longterm experiments recorded even one of them happening.
http://public.econ.duke.edu/~e...
Utrecht in the Netherlands is reportedly planning a similar experiment at the moment. I predict that the exact same thing will happen that always happens: the experiment runs, it's a resounding success but by the time it finishes the administration has changed and whoever is in power now would rather die than implement as national policy any idea his predecessor had championed so the results will be logged as academic knowledge but no further benefit would be gained.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *