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The Guardian reports on the next step of AI taking over a job that humans never imagined they would:
The world's largest hedge fund is building a piece of software to automate the day-to-day management of the firm, including hiring, firing and other strategic decision-making.
Bridgewater Associates has a team of software engineers working on the project at the request of billionaire founder Ray Dalio, who wants to ensure the company can run according to his vision even when he's not there, the Wall Street Journal reported.
[...] The firm, which manages $160bn, created the team of programmers specializing in analytics and artificial intelligence, dubbed the Systematized Intelligence Lab, in early 2015. The unit is headed up by David Ferrucci, who previously led IBM's development of Watson, the supercomputer that beat humans at Jeopardy! in 2011.
The company is already highly data-driven, with meetings recorded and staff asked to grade each other throughout the day using a ratings system called "dots". The Systematized Intelligence Lab has built a tool that incorporates these ratings into "Baseball Cards" that show employees' strengths and weaknesses. Another app, dubbed The Contract, gets staff to set goals they want to achieve and then tracks how effectively they follow through.
These tools are early applications of PriOS, the over-arching management software that Dalio wants to make three-quarters of all management decisions within five years. The kinds of decisions PriOS could make include finding the right staff for particular job openings and ranking opposing perspectives from multiple team members when there's a disagreement about how to proceed.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 27 2016, @09:54AM
My view is that the huge problem with this isn't the danger of AI optimizing for crazy shit, or the attempt to create a permanent culture based on micromanagement and excessive evaluation, but rather that this business model is just ephemeral performance art in the first place. It wouldn't be much different if the AI were enforcing mime acting. Some would-be investors would still lap up this stuff. "They're so hardcore they fired some guy for getting on his imaginary bicycle from the wrong side. They'll take care of my money!"
We should create a permanent hive of a system enforcing ridiculous behavioral norms just because it looked good for a few years in the early 21st Century? Well, at least it's money for AI.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by dyingtolive on Tuesday December 27 2016, @11:59AM
Bridgewater is a company for assholes, by assholes. I've never met Dalio, but from what I've seen (and heard from others) from the outside working with employees of the company, I wouldn't shed a tear to see it crash and burn, hard. People regularly enough have described the company as a cult that he had to put out a press release claiming otherwise.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 4, Funny) by GungnirSniper on Tuesday December 27 2016, @12:17PM
I don't want it to completely fail though, lest the rats scurry to other companies.
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