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posted by martyb on Wednesday July 04 2018, @01:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the No-irrational-AI-for-me...-make-mine-real! dept.

Ibrahim Diallo was allegedly fired by a machine. Recent news reports relayed the escalating frustration he felt as his security pass stopped working, his computer system login was disabled, and finally he was frogmarched from the building by security personnel. His managers were unable to offer an explanation, and powerless to overrule the system.

Some might think this was a taste of things to come as artificial intelligence is given more power over our lives. Personally, I drew the opposite conclusion. Diallo was sacked because a previous manager hadn't renewed his contract on the new computer system and various automated systems then clicked into action. The problems were not caused by AI, but by its absence.

The systems displayed no knowledge-based intelligence, meaning they didn't have a model designed to encapsulate knowledge (such as human resources expertise) in the form of rules, text and logical links. Equally, the systems showed no computational intelligence – the ability to learn from datasets – such as recognising the factors that might lead to dismissal. In fact, it seems that Diallo was fired as a result of an old-fashioned and poorly designed system triggered by a human error. AI is certainly not to blame – and it may be the solution.

This man was fired by a computer

What do you guys think about hiring and firing by AI? Would you agree with the article's premise?


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  • (Score: 2) by Revek on Wednesday July 04 2018, @02:25PM (3 children)

    by Revek (5022) on Wednesday July 04 2018, @02:25PM (#702545)

    The guys supervisor didn't file the paperwork to extend his contract.

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Rivenaleem on Wednesday July 04 2018, @03:26PM (2 children)

    by Rivenaleem (3400) on Wednesday July 04 2018, @03:26PM (#702569)

    Yes, and that is the point of the article. The position we'll benefit the most from AI is in the lobs of supervisors, management and CEOs. There is no position more suited for AI than here. These should be the first jobs that are replaced by AIs.

    • (Score: 2) by Revek on Wednesday July 04 2018, @03:33PM

      by Revek (5022) on Wednesday July 04 2018, @03:33PM (#702573)

      The point of the article is to scare lusers in to fearing for their jobs.

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    • (Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Wednesday July 04 2018, @09:03PM

      by SomeGuy (5632) on Wednesday July 04 2018, @09:03PM (#702736)

      Or a simple single tweak to their existing system might let one or more supervisors receive notifications (or additional notifications) when something like this is about to happen.

      Although that might not have helped. The manager may have been too busy with hookers and crack to do approve some boring contract extension.

      Sure, throw "AI" at the problem. Let the AI bitch and whine that a contract needs to be extended that it is not allowed to do itself, and once that is done there will be cake. At which time the manager will flip the "off" switch as he snorts some more crack and gets ready to clean up the dead hooker.

      You can't really fix "people" problem with technology.