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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?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 04 2018, @01:28PM (7 children)
If you can be fired by AI without anyone overruling the automated decision, your job wasn't very important anyway.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 04 2018, @01:51PM (6 children)
I'd spin it another way. If you can be fired by AI (or just the computer doing braindead calculations) and no sack of flesh and blood can figure out WHY you were, then you need new management.
Seriously, being sacked by an automated system period without any review/oversight is fucking insane and irresponsible.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday July 04 2018, @05:07PM (2 children)
I think your spin is on target. I'd be standing outside, wondering why in hell I've spent the past xx years working for a bunch of cretins who allow themselves to be ruled by a freaking computer. Things are bad enough with the politically correct nonsense. At least that can make some kind of a twisted sense, now and then. But - a COMPUTER?!?!?! Braindead zombies, all of them.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 04 2018, @05:17PM (1 child)
If the "manager" couldn't do anything about it, they are not a true manager. One of the legal requirements of management is hiring and firing.
Although I do love the fact that there is a broken process, any AI integration that could "fix" this process and let the AI cancel the firing, would also allow PEOPLE to cancel the firing.
But no, please tell me how AI will solve all the worlds problems in ways that people couldn't.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday July 05 2018, @03:55AM
Legal blame deflection. Don't sue me, the computer did that.
I noticed that the problem triggered because the victim's manager had been laid off (and didn't renew a crucial data record for the victim) and that no one could reverse the decision of the computer after being triggered by such a minor problem. Why set up a system that way? Because you want to avoid legal responsibility for the decisions of the computer system. So given the presence of laid off employees and a system that was designed to fire people without recourse, it appears that the business in question was probably planning to downsize more in some way and lay off a bunch of people, perhaps on an ongoing, permanent basis. The computer system was probably legal protection for the firings.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Mykl on Wednesday July 04 2018, @11:38PM (1 child)
Agree - if the humans in this organisation can't get their shit together for 3 weeks then they need to be replaced.
By the standard of this article, I've been 'fired' twice this year so far - once when a manager forgot to extend me, the other was a bug in the company's systems this Monday. In both cases, management immediately said "Well it's obviously a mistake, we'll get it fixed" and I was back online the next day. I was also paid for the days I had no access.
Contrary to TFA's conclusion, the less automation you have in these processes, the better.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday July 05 2018, @12:46AM
Sounds like one of those made-up stories you find in womens' magazines: "Fired by my boss, " "Fired by my IT guy."
Jews are always behind the AI. Remember, all classified data about citizens, including members of government, was collected and delivered to Israel, unredacted. [theguardian.com]
That, more than anything, should have been the trigger. But everybody ignored it.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday July 05 2018, @07:44AM
And, would you do business with guys that cannot even prevent a data mismanagement to have kafkian consequences?
They are better off ruled by malevolent AI, indeed. As the lot of you is.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by MrGuy on Wednesday July 04 2018, @01:34PM (6 children)
Oh flippin' please. AI? Really? That's the only solution to this problem?
A person was deemed to have departed, and the automated system cancelled his accounts, locked him out, and notified security to remove him. "His managers were...powerless to overrule the system."
Good! That's exactly how the system should work - it's how I would HOPE that the system would work at any office that works on sensitive material, and which might be in real trouble if a rogue or disgruntled employee decided to wreak havoc for vengance after being fired. You SHOULDN'T have a manager or someone else be able to intervene midway through offboarding an employee and stop the process, skip steps, or overrule decisions like "we need to revoke access.
In the very worst case, all that happens is someone is sent home for a day (or maybe two, but if their offboarding is this efficient the onboarding is likely similar) before they get set back up when the error is realized. That's inconvenient, not tragic.
The problem here is SOLELY on the front end. A contractor was on a contract with the end date. The manager failed to properly renew the contract, causing the system to believe the contractor was terminated. The manager didn't renew the contractor, the system correctly "failed safe" and assumed the contractor was terminated (as opposed to leaving his access open forever in case he got renewed some day).
The solution isn't some elaborate expert system. It's bog standard workflow management stuff we've had for 30 years. The system should scan for employees on contracts with end dates in the near future (say, 60 days out) and send a reminder e-mail to the manager. It should follow up at 30 days. If at 14 days the manager hasn't either expressly renewed, or expressly stated the person will NOT be renewed, it should remind again and CC the manager's boss. Repeat at 7 days. This isn't hard - require an explicit decision. If circumstances change or the manager changes their mind, they can renew the employee any time before the contract ends. How do you NOT have a system like this in place? How would this NOT have prevented the problem?
This person wasn't (counter to the narrative) fired by a computer. They were fired by an incompetent boss. The solution isn't AI. It's simple workflow. This is, simply put, not a hard problem to solve. Blaming their offboarding system (which I consider to be exemplary) is just dumb.
There are plenty of places where we legitimately SHOULD be concerned about AI running amok and ruining lives. Credit profiles. Stock trading. Insurance company incorrectly flagging fraud. This is simply not one of them, and it boggles my mind that this continues to be a story in the popular press.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Wednesday July 04 2018, @02:19PM (1 child)
Alternately, and equally likely, this person was fired by a cowardly boss who is blaming the computer for their own decision.
After all, the manager could have said "I know you're locked out of the computer system. Take a week off, we'll get your updated contract extension worked out, and we'll get you back in." They didn't do so, which means the boss wanted this employee gone, regardless of what they actually say.
Also a possibility is that the employee was someone who companies are reluctant to fire because they're in a class that can sue for wrongful termination due to, say, racial discrimination, and blaming the computer system is a legal defense.
Either way, an old maxim comes to mind: "For every computer error, there are at least 2 human errors, including the error of blaming the computer."
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 04 2018, @05:22PM
You mean they moved his desk into the basement and took his red Swingline stapler?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by legont on Wednesday July 04 2018, @03:17PM (2 children)
No, it is not. The problem with the system is - it is stupid. While the system is stupid, it should not be able to take such actions. More specifically, the people who put such a system in place should be prosecuted for violating his human rights.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 04 2018, @03:35PM (1 child)
It’s a human right to have your contract auto extended?
His manager could have expedited the fix or told the contractor to take the day off; yet, he didn’t choose to do so. Sounds like a valid termination to me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 04 2018, @07:59PM
If you're a government contractor, yes. Yes it is.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday July 05 2018, @11:53AM
I disagree. Who makes these decisions to fire people in the first place? The managers. Why shouldn't they be able to change their minds?
And what happens when the rogue/disgruntled employee is in charge of the system that fires people without recourse? Sounds like they can prevent their own system from firing themselves.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Wednesday July 04 2018, @01:36PM (4 children)
in the US, I'd be more comfortable being handled by a computer than by a human being, that's for damn sure...
(Score: 4, Funny) by bitstream on Wednesday July 04 2018, @01:56PM
In the US the AI fears being replaced by the Pointy Haired Boss (PHB) .. :-)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 04 2018, @03:19PM (1 child)
Depends on the said human racial and social status.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 04 2018, @05:11PM
Yeah, you definitely want to avoid the combination of orange-haired race and presidential social status. ;-)
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday July 04 2018, @05:14PM
To each his own, I guess. https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2015/04/sexbots-realdoll-sex-toys [vanityfair.com]
Probably NSFW, but who is working today?
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by bitstream on Wednesday July 04 2018, @01:58PM (2 children)
If they still need him. I can smell the compensation..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 04 2018, @02:23PM
Let's hope they need him more than he needs them. Otherwise it's just as likely to go down like "Well you missed two days due to this, which puts you down for 2 days of unexcused absence and we're behind now thanks to all this crap. It's not going to look good on your review when it comes time to renew your contract. Remember, it's your responsibility to make sure management is doing it's job, so don't let this happen again."
(Score: 2) by suburbanitemediocrity on Wednesday July 04 2018, @03:39PM
How so? His contract ended and was not renewed. That's like a television series suing a network for not being picked up another season.
(Score: 2) by Revek on Wednesday July 04 2018, @02:25PM (3 children)
The guys supervisor didn't file the paperwork to extend his contract.
This page was generated by a Swarm of Roaming Elephants
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Rivenaleem on Wednesday July 04 2018, @03:26PM (2 children)
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
The point of the article is to scare lusers in to fearing for their jobs.
This page was generated by a Swarm of Roaming Elephants
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Wednesday July 04 2018, @09:03PM
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.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 04 2018, @02:32PM (1 child)
From the movie "Office Space":
This is very much the same thing that happened here, without any "AI" or computers.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 04 2018, @03:26PM
I'm surprised the ending didn't happen yet.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 04 2018, @04:17PM (4 children)
At the place where I'm working now, we have high turnover. So many folks getting hired. Fired. And quitting. Not a lot dying or retiring. I'm the boss, I do a lot of the firing, sometimes my assistants do it for me. One guy was about to retire, he wanted to go another 2 days then retire. We told him, "no, you're fired." I'll tell you, we're very modern. So many times, I don't call folks into my office to fire them. And I don't call them on the phone. I tweet it on Social Media. And we have cyber -- computer -- to keep track of who's working for us. We have Microsoft XL with all the names. Big list of the names. Very modern!
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 04 2018, @04:40PM (3 children)
You forgot to log into your troll account.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday July 04 2018, @05:17PM (1 child)
Hate when that happens . . .
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 3, Touché) by qzm on Wednesday July 04 2018, @11:11PM
At least you remembered to ;)
(sorry, FAR too hard to resist)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 04 2018, @10:19PM
(Score: 2) by srobert on Wednesday July 04 2018, @04:26PM (1 child)
See title.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 04 2018, @08:46PM
Close, but I think it makes more sense as,
With True AI No Managers are Required.
There are still certain operations that require human dexterity.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 04 2018, @05:29PM
"This wouldn't have happened if the company had AI!!!"
You should be afraid of AI. You should be afraid of not having AI. You should be afraid of someone else having AI.
Just remember kids, you can't spell "afraid" without "AI". I can't wait for the other vowels to come up with a futuristic meaning. Until then, be afraid!