How AI Will Indulge Bosses’ Most Toxic Instincts
And you thought this was bad.
Photographer: Bettmann/Getty
The most important question that companies face in deploying Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not technological but organizational: Should they use AI to increase the power of high-up managers or liberate front-line workers? I suspect that the bulk of them will give the wrong answer to the question — and that we will be dealing with the consequences of their mistakes for decades to come, not just economically, as companies lose their creative flair, but also politically, as professional elites join the ranks of the angry and alienated.
Companies will evolve in radically different directions according to the answer that they give to this question. Choose the first answer and they will evolve into “panopticons.” Managers will use AI’s growing powers to divide jobs into identical units, monitor and measure workers in terms of their ability to fulfill their assigned roles and get rid of surplus workers. The faster you work, the more you will be rewarded.