Automation is changing organisations from the top down and a new management layer is replacing supervisors and line managers with machines. Is your next boos a bot?

Hosts: Matt Armitage & Richard Bradbury 

Produced: Richard Bradbury for BFM89.9

Episode Sources

Read:

https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/564668-warning-your-boss-is-probably-spying-on-you-and-it-could-be-bad-for-your

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/oct/29/yeah-were-spooked-ai-starting-to-have-big-real-world-impact-says-expert

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/18/portugal-bosses-work-hours-right-to-disconnect

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My name is rich Bradbury, and this is mansplained in the near future.

A robot could be chairing your meetings, setting your tasks

and appraising your performance.

Automation is starting to change organizations from the top down.

Meet the new boss, more matte than the old boss.

Hi man.

How are you doing?

I'm good.

Thank you.

Uh, you know, that's probably the nicest intro that you've done for me.

So thank you for that.

Um, I've long been told that my management style is inhuman and now

it seems that the world has caught up with me a couple of years ago.

You know, we covered a story about an Amazon packing

robot that needed people to.

Packages 24 7, uh, flipping the narrative where machines assist humans

and humans assisted the machines.

Now it's by no means the only example, but it is one of the more extreme,

you know, uh, there are things where that we're, we're quite used to

where you send your car for service.

For example, the mechanic now just plugs a machine in, it runs a diagnostic check.

So the machine is kind of in charge.

What the mechanics then do, that's probably a bit more

of an equal partnership, but you know, you get the idea.

So our relationship with machines is changing, especially when we look

at the kind of AI powered automation services that are now being implemented.

Um, I was kind of led to a leave mat that we were talking about vaccines.

We were.

Um, but I figured that as this is the last show in November and we'll concentrate

mostly on year end roundups and, you know, big in 2021 things in December, it

would fit better into that kind of light.

And yeah.

And I've been hearing and reading a lot about business automation over the past

few weeks, especially as we've been talking about ways that the metaverse

might intrude into our working lives.

So I wanted to talk more about the intrusion of AI and automation, especially

when it comes to our working lives and highlight some of the privacy issues

and the surveillance technologies that this hybrid work is enabling.

And of course, to ask, who do you turn to when your boss is a robot?

Is that likely those management roles being filled by machines?

Well, to an extent, they already are, you know, without jumping the

gun too much, a lot of current gig economy, jobs, you know, delivery and

distribution apps, he hailing where your employment is based around services

that are allocated through an app.

Your boss is already.

Basically an algorithm, it allocates you the tasks, it collates the customer

ratings that feed back your performance.

And of course it issues payment.

So this kind of setup is becoming more common.

And, you know, perhaps after an initial interview, which may even be done

with a third party contract company, many workers have very little human

interaction with the companies that.

Partnering, um, plenty of stories of service this year about workers.

Who've had their services terminated by those same algorithms.

Perhaps their scores have fallen bit below the minimum customer satisfaction

ratings that you need to stay on the apps or because of perhaps a particular

customer complaint, but often because there are no con uh, no humans, uh,

and the system can be quite opaque.

It's very difficult to find out exactly why you've been axed.

Yeah.

Is that because most of the workers are classed as, uh, suppliers or

partners rather than employees?

Well, yes.

So you often don't have much recourse to either tribunals at

the company you've been working with or protections under the law.

We are starting to see that change.

Uh, some countries are bringing in new rules that give gig

workers more employment rights.

They're giving them things like employer tax contribution.

Health protections, paid sick, leave things like medical leave,

you know, all the things that we took for granted in the old economy.

Yeah.

But we are seeing this creep of service automation into the supervisory

and managerial levels of companies.

Now I gave her a bunch of talks before the pandemic imprisoned me in this

bedroom studio where the theme was that I could start at the top of a company

rather than the bottom of a company when it comes to implementing AI solutions,

especially as we've seen this trend for listed companies to focus as much on.

Market performance, uh, you know, as much as delivering the products and

services that generate their profits.

Uh, for example, you know, Tesla passed the trillion dollar market cap mark

in, uh, October, despite 2020 being its first full year of profitability.

And even then it only delivered a modest $720 million in profit, not even a billion

dollars on a trillion dollar value.

How did we get,

how do you get from Tesla to your bosses?

A robot?

Well, it's not some dig it Elon Musk, long way he rain.

Uh, my argument was as global markets move at the speed of light data

packets of information that are moving around from place to place.

It makes sense to have machines.

In those C-suite positions that also operate at the same speeds as market.

And of course CEO's who are online 24 7 as my markets open and close around the

world, you know, think of all the money you'd save in Gilt, edge salaries and

stock options with a bot CEO, no golfing or expensive clubs and entertainment, no

bad PR and no sexual harassment suits.

Don't do.

Everybody laughed politely and told you it would never happen.

Yeah, you got it.

You know, we might not have seen the world's first automated CEO yet,

but there are plenty of inanimate CEOs already in the human realm.

But, you know, as I said, these supervisory bots are becoming increasingly

common bosses that you will never see or meet, but who still exert power

to influence your day-to-day work?

And how does this play into the argument?

You often make that, um, jobs and roles are being displaced by automation.

Well, we can backtrack to that point about top-up and, uh, top-down adoption.

You know, we've said it before.

Most people think about robots in the workplace as being

physical machines, either.

It's some scary Boston dynamics designed hunter killer, or the

kind of big industrial robots that are bolted in place.

Perform kind of parts of that manufacturing process.

Uh, and they think of robots more in terms of replacing manual jobs.

But we have to recognize that there is an element of double think going on here.

Bosses can use the threat of automation to hold wages down.

Uh, you know, we, haven't done a show about the, uh, great

resignation and its effects.

Uh, again, that's something we'll talk about in the year end shows, but what

we have seen is bosses saying if I have to pay you more than it's cheaper for me

to replace you with an algorithm or a.

Yeah, I noticed

you're sticking with algorithm rather than AI today.

Well, I think people know how interchangeable the terms are now.

Um, uh, we're not the only people, you know, ramming algorithms down their

throats, but certainly automation can be used in this way as a looming

threat, especially when shows like this, say that robots are coming for

your jobs, you know, we're helping to support the, the employers claims there.

It's often a lot more subtle than that.

I think we phrased it as the creep of automation in previous shows, stuff

like service and process automation.

You know, the stuff that isn't glamorous or headline.

Um, tools that replace those repetitive Drudge light tasks say, you know,

a tool that automates and speeds up invoice, matching and payments in a,

in, uh, an organization, things that are time-consuming and overlooked,

but very necessary as anyone who's ever had a, a data entry job is going

to tell you at the other end, you have RFID and facial recognition.

Payment systems that enable cashier lists checkouts in stores and restaurants,

stock management systems that can react to real time, consumer demand to reorder

and maintain inventory and all that under the hood stuff that isn't screaming in

meetings about how productive it is,

how is seeing this automation spread between legacy companies and stop.

Well, so we've seen globally, uh, expenditure on capital and technology

increase in double digits since the start of the pandemic, those bosses

who had been scaring, their staff with threats of automation realized that, Hey.

Technology doesn't get COVID.

So I got this example from a recent Rico daily podcast, titled automation is not

what you think, which uses the example of my bank in China, which is part

of Jack MA's, you know, enormous and.

Um, Ali pay and all the associated companies and they pioneered the

3, 1 0 model of collateral free personal and business loans.

It takes three minutes to fill out the application online or in the app.

One second for it to be approved and for the cash to be deposited in your account.

And CRO human interaction.

So 3, 1 0, it relies on Allie pays existing AI computing and risk management

technologies, but then you compare it to the thousands of loan officers

employed in a traditional bank, uh, with all of its branches, the time

it takes for submission and approval.

And you compare that with a startup bank that can automate that process without

any human staff at all being involved.

So there's a pressure on these legacy companies to streamline or even

automate their own business practices?

Well, certainly I think, you know, FinTech is, uh, is a, uh, a region or

an area where we're seeing a lot of churn and change, uh, because there

are so many new players coming in and because the existing players have got

millions or billions of dollars at stake, so they have to rapidly transform.

To meet the challenge.

And, you know, from a consumer point of view, we expect any financial

transactions we do to be instantaneous.

We expect to be able to move money from one place to another in seconds.

So there's an enormous pressure and X sets of expectations there

that it's quite unrealistic to expect a human workforce to meet.

You know, as well as greater productivity and volume, some of these players are

also passing those costs savings on to consumers because of having lower

overheads, they're offering low or no processing fees, they offer very

competitive rates and some of these next gen players are already huge.

Now I mentioned my bank.

There are also insurers like lemonade in the U S which went

public in 2020, and also works on this kind of automated model.

They offer insurance coverage in 90 seconds and they claim to pay

out on claims within three minutes.

So this gives them a lot more room to innovate.

They can offer flexible payment options, like paying your premiums

on a monthly basis and they state that they only take a flat fee.

Premium, which allows them to pass the cost savings on in terms of

lower premium costs to the consumers.

How is a bot your boss, if there are no staff,

well, I'm just illustrating the, the, the movement that, uh,

the direction that automation is taking and how it's affecting the

way traditional companies, staff.

So I don't want to call it disruption.

I think when we come to this kind of, uh, automation, all of this innovation.

Coming to these industries, you know, across the spectrum.

What we've seen is more of an acceleration in adoption,

partly because of the pandemic.

And partly because these new entrance haven't inherited those,

you know, legacy business models with huge numbers of staff.

And that's what we'll get into in a minute.

The managerial layer of machines that is coming soon to a white collar workplace.

Now, That

and more after the break, as we talk about the boss, where that allows

the algorithms to monitor you through your phone and through your laptop, you're

tuned into mansplained here on BFM 89.9

benchmark for managers BFM 89.9.

BFM 89.9, the business station.

My name is rich Bradbury.

And welcome back to Matt explained boss bots.

They work longer hours than you.

They only think about work and their idea of happiness and pastoral care.

It's a rating on a scale from one to five, Matt.

Yeah.

So that rating part is quite scary.

I mean, the rest of it just sounds like a normal bus, but, um, you know, we, we

mentioned that the, the gig workers who depend on feedback scores from customer.

Just to stay on the app, a low score and you're penalized, or

even thrown off the service.

But that could very much be the future of all of our working lives.

Imagine if you're in a client servicing role and after every

scheduled meeting the algorithms.

Uh, feedback note to ask the client to rate you for months or similarly,

if every piece of work you submit is similarly rated, you know, I know it

sounds a little ridiculous, but with the spread of more flexible working

conditions, we've seen this kind of co consequent and consecutive rise of boss

where software that's designed to monitor.

Well, ye and that's where we're seeing this first managerial layer,

or at least our interaction with an automated managerial layer

in these white collar settings.

Now, before we get into the technicalities of this kind of

software, what are we seeing in people's reaction to this type of technology?

Will they accept that their boss is no longer

a.

Well, that's why there's a bit of stuff to this, you know, not necessarily in a

deliberate way, you know, I'm not framing this as a conspiracy or a silent takeover.

I think a lot of gig workers, uh, appreciated the flexibility of the

approach that at least to begin with, you know, their manager,

the app was always there for them.

It worked the same schedule as them, or at least that's how it appeared.

You might get helpful notifications telling you about partner deals.

Booster packages as well as strategies to maximize your income

chat bot services that answered your questions, whatever the time of day.

So you don't see it as a boss, but it's a mistake to think that this

is like Alexa or Siri, something that's there to help you often.

It's only later when something goes wrong, but you realize

that this inscrutable assistant.

Isn't your friend is your boss and it's a boss that has the

power to end your employment.

Your source of.

And you think that we're seeing something similar

with this wave of boss where

very much so, you know, partly because the software might come

preloaded on a work laptop or phone, or your required to update your existing

machine to include that new software.

So you don't think of it as a supervisor.

But it's still something that's interacting with.

You sending you notifications about your productivity, about your performance and

all of that information is being fed back.

It will be raised in your performance reviews.

It will pull a form part of your record with the company.

It will influence your promotion.

Bonus or pay, raise prospects.

Those are all traditional boss roles.

You know, I was talking to someone who works in forensic data recently,

uh, you know, the kind of company that looks for signs of, uh, hacking or

corporate espionage, that type of stuff.

And he said, it's quite incredible.

What people still do with work laptops and phones and send through email.

You know, we're more than 20 years into digital working, being the norm, but

people still can't get it straight in their minds that everything they do with

a company, laptop or phone or tablet is subject to oversight and investigation.

It's not your device.

It's not your device in any way.

Browser history.

What shows you stream on a work device?

Those preferences can be monitored.

Your activities on that machine can then invite censure by your.

Um,

now, um, when we talk about boss, where, what kind of software,

I mean, there's an enormous range.

You know, one level it's simply, you know, logging into your machine.

It's basically a digital timecard and that's become a lot more important

since the start of the pandemic.

Because if you're working from home, it tells the company that

you're present and correct for work.

There may be some kind of software that limits the sites

you can access on the device.

You know, that's been standard at a lot of companies for a long time.

What's different now is that.

Much more work from home.

These company policies about what you can and can't do with machines.

This is now coming into much more of a domestic setting.

And I think where it starts to get even more intrusive is with things

like system management tools.

These might be looking at what you're doing with the files on the device.

Are you attempting to upload them to a cloud account?

That's not linked to the company.

Are you trying to email them from a non.

Linked email account.

So there's that security aspect in keeping the companies come from a

confidential information secure.

What about things like direct surveillance, you know, access to

your camera, that kind of thing.

Well, you know, uh, that kind of thing, um, things like key loggers,

for example, a very common, uh, again, at one end of the spectrum, it might

just be, uh, analyzing that you're actually using the machine that you are

actually typing things from time to time.

Uh, we've heard of this rising trend.

People taking more than one remote job and kind of juggling and spoofing sort of

working one and semi working the other.

So partially this is a guard against that, that you aren't just logging into

work and not actually doing anything during the day at the other extreme,

a Malaysian friend, remotely working as a copywriter for a us company.

They're key logging software, expected them to, to maintain

a certain number of keystrokes.

Um, I think every 10 minutes or so fall below it and notification

would be sent to the human boss.

But as you asked, you know, we're also seeing more tools that give

camera and microphone access.

Wow, that might involve the machine taking photos of you X number of times per hour,

or even X number of times per minute.

It might even capture a live stream from the cameras and Mike's while you're

logged in from work and all of this.

We'll then be stored for future reference.

It will be analyzed for your productivity or for human resources

permit purposes in the future.

And it goes without saying that bosses can access your screen in real time

and see what programs you're using, what sites you're currently reading,

you know, what browser tabs are open.

And of course what you're typing

now.

I mean, you've been speaking a lot about facial recognition software this year.

I always seeing that kind of technology being incorporated

into these, uh, boss where suites,

I think a piece in the Washington post used an example of facial recognition

software that had been created for.

Legal firms.

The idea is that it would help lawyers to track billable hours.

Now the same software can also be used to lock the computer.

Uh, so that sensitive documents can't be accessed by people other than the

user, you know, somebody can't just peer at your screen and see what's on it.

So if an unrecognized face, it could be a child, it could even

be a pet appears on screen.

Then the software locks, the computer until the registered

user comes back and logs back in.

However, the article pointed out that one of the users of the

software that they canvassed found that it was actually very glitchy.

The suite was very glitchy.

So if they moved around on the camera, the software would log them out.

As a result, the person had to adopt, uh, an unnatural posture and avoid

moving around just in order to.

And being able to be allowed to carry on.

My

word.

Okay.

Um, but th this really brings a, a question of harm, you know, when does

it stop being a productivity monitor and start being an unacceptable

intrusion?

Okay.

Well, that's another one of those complicated to answer questions.

You know, Gartner has found that the use of monitoring

software has more than doubled.

Pandemic, as of course, remote working has increased.

And as we're seeing with, uh, blue collar examples of these tools, legislation

is slow to catch up in the U S we're only starting to see legislation or

court rulings that are penalizing tools.

Like some of the ones Amazon has been using that set such

rigid targets for employees.

But, uh, some of them have reported wearing diapers on the warehouse floor

because they haven't been able to meet their targets if they do something

as simple as going to the bathroom.

Now that becomes, you know, even more complicated when you start looking

at these flexible work solutions, because you then see the domestic

and the professional situation.

Intermingling should accompany be recording your conversations while

you might be helping your kids with their online lessons, or should it

be recording a private conversation between you and your partner?

Because during the pandemic, the kitchen table has become, you know,

it's become your office, your partner's office, and it's become a classroom.

Yeah.

Other risks that this kind of stuff.

Good could cause harm.

Well, I mentioned that Amazon example, but there's also an enormous

potential mental health risk.

People are stressed that they're constantly being watched and you know,

and it can sometimes come as a surprise.

Uh, some of the companies.

Tell you what the software is that you're downloading others.

Just tell you, you know, you've got to download a, an update.

Uh, the Washington post article also quotes a guy who was looking

for some files on his machine.

And suddenly his boss came in over his headphones and told him.

You know what directories and folders to, to, to look in.

He had no idea.

Yeah.

He had no idea that his boss could even watch his screen, let alone listen to him.

Uh, you know, so there is a risk of staff adopting unhealthy practices.

Like we said wearing diapers rather than risking taking a break.

Uh, the, the friend I was talking about, got a notice from a boss because

it appeared that she was nodding off, you know, it was taking snaps

of her and it noticed that her eyes were closed for too many seconds.

Uh, and the algorithm flagged it and sent it to a boss to, you know, deal with.

So that direct performance evaluation

is there.

Yeah.

I mean, we've talked about, um, gait analysis on the show before, you

know, software that analyzes your posture and the way that you move.

And we've also talked about smart video conference software.

Can help you to read a room.

So those same technologies could be evaluating your performance again.

At one level it's relatively benign.

You know, it could tell the company, our meetings at 4:00 PM as

productive as meetings at 10:00 AM, but they can also single out the

performance of individuals over time.

Is that person as attentive as they were two months ago.

Are you a person who frequently contributes and do your

contributions enhance or degrade the quality of the meeting?

Are you someone who creates conflict amongst your team members?

Because it's not only your performance in meetings, it will evaluate, you

know, it will also look at what kind of language you use when you're

communicating with colleagues.

Emails direct calls, slack or instant messages.

It will look at things like, you know, are cliques forming are people

ganging up on some team members?

So

the issue becomes who or what is judging us.

Yeah.

You know, we talk about bias in software.

It could be racial bias, gender cultural, and these things can

be hard-coded from the start.

So for example, you know, I was often accused of being brusque in

communications with Malaysian colleagues.

They would write me a hugely long email and I would just

respond with yes, no, or note it.

And they found that insulting because my.

Once contained no acknowledgement at the time and effort that had

gone into writing the message.

Similarly, they couldn't understand that I was incandescent with rage and

wanted to tear down the world when they walked into a meeting five minutes late.

You know, can software manage these differences?

We know that machines struggled with context.

So how do they differentiate between someone who's direct and

somebody who's rude because those two things can often appear.

To be the same, but somebody who's rude can actively derail

a project, but somebody who's direct can help to speed it along.

So because you know, we, we are giving these or rather before we give these

machines decision-making powers.

We have to be sure that they're capable of reaching and making the

right decisions and that when they don't, there's still a human in that

management layer that we can appeal to.

Great.

Thanks very much

for that, man.

Thank you.

Sorry about the, uh, the cracking and bubbling of my voice, everyone.

Uh, I, yeah, I do apologize.

He's just kind of hold folks.

Don't worry about it.

Now you can find Matt on Instagram and Twitter at culture mat, you can also head

over to culture, pub.com for transcripts of these shows and information about

culture and its consulting services.

My name is rich Bradbury for BFM 89.9.

The business station.

Mm

Hmm.

Thank you for listening to this podcast, to find more great interviews, go to

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