In a New York Times article called Degrees and Dollars, Paul Krugman writes about how computers may be able to replace a lot of activities that traditionally were considered skilled labour, like some of the things lawyers and engineers do.
There is a twist on that subject. Traditionally, corporations set "measurable" targets for their employees. That means that they put more weight on a task like "sell x number of units" than on "gain an understanding of customer needs". The former can easily be measured. The latter cannot.
Now, the "skilled" activities a computer can perform are repeatable and easily measured. In other words, the traditional company prioritises tasks that computers can do over humans. Setting measurable objectives is a fairly measurable objective, so even management of those companies could to some extent be replaced by computers.
And if management is a computer that very efficiently assigns tasks to other computers to earn money, what do the computers use the money for?
Luckily computers are not yet good at imagining fun things to do with money.
There is a twist on that subject. Traditionally, corporations set "measurable" targets for their employees. That means that they put more weight on a task like "sell x number of units" than on "gain an understanding of customer needs". The former can easily be measured. The latter cannot.
Now, the "skilled" activities a computer can perform are repeatable and easily measured. In other words, the traditional company prioritises tasks that computers can do over humans. Setting measurable objectives is a fairly measurable objective, so even management of those companies could to some extent be replaced by computers.
And if management is a computer that very efficiently assigns tasks to other computers to earn money, what do the computers use the money for?
Luckily computers are not yet good at imagining fun things to do with money.
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