Comments
Michelle
9/25/2017 2:43:17 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: Skeptical
I just want to add a bit about modern HR offices. I suspect many already function as if a machine is involved in day-to-day tasks. Many departments aren't actually helpful to employees and offer zero solutions to serious internal issues. Perhaps the machines can do a better job in the end...
JohnBarnes
9/25/2017 7:43:10 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: Skeptical
Michelle,
I suspect the robotic group affect of HR offices is because they're primarily legal cover for the company; employment law is now so complicated (and so many old time managers were so idiosyncratic) that staying out of trouble requires rigidly enforcing rules, and rigid rule-following is nowadays something we associate with computers. So whatever personal qualities HR folk may have, their job consists in finding least-litigatable-option and insisting on it. And again, optimizing to a single criterion comes across as robotic because that is what hte robots of today do.
JohnBarnes
9/25/2017 7:49:14 PM
User Rank Platinum
I like the accidental pun...
Most of Ewert's principles are imperative commands. "Change Agents" sounds like it could be one too: "Alter or replace the people/things that carry out your intentions." Which is really the biggest thing happening in the software-driven replacement of dedicated physical hardware, and one of the biggest in the retraining and retooling of the technical workforce.
JohnBarnes
9/25/2017 8:34:32 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: Skeptical
DHagar,
Every time something is automated, it changes both the product (and the expectations of it) and the person who "makes" the product (in quotes because running a shoe machine is not really very much like making shoes). It's not just a substitution but a fundamental change in what the thing means and how it comes to be used. Once upon a time, train and ship and even airplane reservations used to be about making sure people paid for the ride (nobody was going to search every passenger on the Rock Island Line to make sure none of them were Jesse James.)think about the welter of different public and private obligations that now surround travel reservations.
JohnBarnes
9/25/2017 8:39:29 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: Skeptical
"They still can't think critically"
-- you mean, do what inference engines have been learning to do for 45 years, and now do constantly for things like process control, weather forecasting, and investment software?
"... or factor in small details a machine would never be privvy to."
Exactly what the big data, machine learning, and anti-interpretability revolutions are accomplishing.
Machines will be far better tha human beings at both those things, well within our lifetime. (Even mine, and I'm an old fat guy from a short-lived family).
elizabethv
9/26/2017 5:40:48 AM
User Rank Platinum
Re: Skeptical
@Michelle - To some extent I think you're right. Though I'm not sure if machines really could do a better job. While I have personally experienced people who seemed completely incapable of any kind of critical thought, and behaved very much like a machine, part of me has to remain hopeful that even if we tend to be falling to the lowest common denominator (Harrison Bergeron anyone?) we don't have to fall that low. We have the ability to rise above. I hope. Good grief, do I hope.
elizabethv
9/26/2017 5:43:25 AM
User Rank Platinum
Re: Skeptical
@JohnBarnes - I fear that type of mindset is rubbing off on other departments and in other areas. People are in general overwhelmingly concerned with a potential litigious mindset. It seems like many different departments have scripted responses to give to a variety of situations.
elizabethv
9/26/2017 5:46:55 AM
User Rank Platinum
Re: Skeptical
@JohnBarnes - I know what you mean, but I still want to remain hopeful that there are nuances a machine could never learn. No matter how many algorithms we can come up with to feed it. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's just a part of me that doesn't want to accept that machines could ever truly replace a human being. Either way, I don't see a full acceptance of machines (robots) for quite a few years to come. Even if we get to the point where the robot in "Passengers" is a reality, would anyone really have a conversation with a robot? Beyond what is needed for information gathering.
Michelle
9/26/2017 1:17:36 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: Skeptical
@John that sounds right. Robotic execution on behalf of the company is really all they can do in many cases. It's folly to think the HR department has any motivation to improve anything beyond the company's desire to avoid being sued...
Michelle
9/26/2017 1:19:12 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: Skeptical
You have to hope. If you don't, the machines will surely win in the end. :)
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