Consequences of AI for Management Control

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Consequences of AI for Management Control

🔥 What is the meaning of Artificial Intelligence for management control…
Does it represent a new, 5th system or lever for control?
Or will AI in the long run be a threat for managers, replacing them?

My 2 cents is that when a firm is using artificial intelligence to make certain decisions, that could be really useful. For example to speed up the decision making, to avoid errors and to be able to take more granular decisions. However it also means at least 4 more things:
1. Those AI systems have to be able to explain how they arrived at their conclusions/decisions. Otherwise the situation becomes uncontrollable and outright dangerous.
2. A technical person has to program the AI engine so it is able to perform 1.
3. A manager will have to check and verify that the technical persons actually did 2. and that they did it well.
4. As soon as the AI system becomes self-learning (improving itself), all of the mentioned 3 things become even more important.

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		0 Gandhi Heryanto Management Consultant, Indonesia
	AI Makes Management Control Functions Efficient and Effective The main function of control is to ensure that management does what is planned and people do what needs to be done. To achieve good control, management makes a description of several types of measurement and feedback processes to achieve predetermined results. To perform efficient and effective control functions we need technologies like AI. AI is needed to help people understand their work best in management control functions. AI is not to replace people, but handles many routine and administrative tasks such as routine reports which can be replaced by computers with AI.

		2 Matthias Bittrich Business Consultant, Germany
	MIT Research about Tasks being Allocated by the Robot I think this MIT research is not uninteresting: Want a happy worker? Let robots take control.. The evaluation of the experiment showed the scientists that of the three experimental set-ups, the third was not only the most efficient, but also the most popular among the human team members. Matthew Gombolay emphasizes that robots will not take over the executive floors in the near future. It is more realistic that in the future tasks will be distributed, planned and coordinated by a programmed algorithm. For example, machine schedules could be created. Advantages: the machine is able to reschedule at short notice, replace a sick worker or a machine that has broken down in production, or create a new schedule. While it takes a human being a long time to spontaneously create such an alternative plan, the robot calculates this almost without delay. Still, people become shepherds who guard their algorithms. What makes governments think about a new "command economy" 2.0, see China. Also see this study: 64% of People Trust a Robot More Than Their Manager What will lead into the lack of political opposition because it disrupts the unity of society - but is this wanted? And let me add one important fact please: Almost everything today called "AI" is nothing more than relatively simple machine learning. Experts therefore call this "Artificial Narrow Intelligence" (ANI). Better wait 20-30 years until real KI appears.

		1 Dr. A. Kent Van Cleave, Jr. Professor, United States
	AI Simply Is The subject line says it all. AI can be used for positive or for negative purposes. AI can be used positively to potentiate human thought, to push information to employees that enables them greater decision making authority, to run manufacturing processes, to diagnose illnesses and cancers, or to beat Jeopardy champions, to target ads to higher interest groups, to track purchasing behavior. AI can be used negatively to spy on employee activities - at work or elsewhere - and attitudes, or to follow us wherever we go via AI facial recognition and public webcams. It will be what we make it. I like to think that it can be used to humanize the workplace through transparency, candor, and empowerment - in other words, as a tool for organization development.

		1 j.a. karman ICT Consultant, Netherlands
	Addtional Question: what Kind of AI / ML do You Want to Use? Going for AI / ML with management control seems to me not the "playing go" machine or having a drone watching workers. Using a Pull system you should know what the wanted load to deliver for several periods is. Knowing the wanted load to deliver (the push) it is possible to plan and manage that part. In my vision it is the value stream managers want to control. You could go for process mining (Wil van der Aalst) when the processes are known. That is data mining on what is going on. A process has a full circle from request to delivery, and includes improvements (PDCA). AI will not replace the manager, it changes the way how managers can decide with better information and avoiding micro-management. I am wondering why those business core processes went out of sight in favor of technology.

		1 Jaap de Jonge Editor, Netherlands
	Management Mechanisms for AI @Dr. A. Kent Van Cleave, Jr.: I agree with you that "AI simply is" or at least will be. And indeed AI is very promising in terms of PROs (opportunities) but I also see massive CONs (risks). That's why the aim of my discussion here is to discuss how we could start developing control (management) mechanisms to ensure we as humanity, leaders and managers can use its benefits while avoiding its drawbacks.

		1 Maurice Hogarth Consultant, United Kingdom
	AI Doesn't Kill God made man but Sam Colt made him equal. Guns don't kill, people do. So for better or worse? What will AI bring? Whether AI proves a blessing or a curse would seem to depend on the state of the society in which it is applied. On the mind set of those who will control its applications. Will it be the sand delivered to the Roman Circus, rather than bread, to keep the populace happy and their minds off reality? In a society that is essentially individualistic, based on what's in it for me there will be a propensity for it to be used to exploit and control (in a manner that professes security and caring for society and people) for it will be a tool to provide command control and power. In a social society based on community, caring and consideration I would expect it to be a tool for aid and assistance to enhancing the quality of life. AI is a political tool, a tool that will provide for control of the economy of society and of technology. Whether our society has a political mindset that will go for life enslavement or life enhancement is what the members of society have to decide. But as we have seen, in a crisis the political and to a great extent the social, mindset is more to head burying in sand rather than to rational foresight and decision taking. To consider its potential value in a business environment is simply a microcosm of its application within society. Yes it will take away much of the drudgery (as computers did, didn't they?) and allow for a freer more leisurely life, won't it? But what is it that makes the management activity satisfying and interesting, will AI take that away and make management simply a production line chore?