Could a machine do a better job than your manager? Maybe so, says Gartner

It's not just manual roles that will be displaced by AI: 'Machines make the decisions and we do the work,' says Stephen Prentice

Artificial intelligence (AI) could make a better workplace manager than a human because "it always makes the right decision and never has a bad day" and therefore has the potential to improve productivity and end workplace discrimination.

That's the view of Gartner analyst Stephen Prentice, who focuses on the relationship between technology, business and society.

Recently, US-based business x.ai talked to Computing about its work creating an AI-based personal assistant, but Prentice believes rather than waiting to be told what to do, AI could call the shots.

"We've got almost pre-programmed into ourselves that we are the masters and the machines will be the slaves; the robots and the machines will all work for us," he explained, during a Gartner debate on AI.

Prentice suggested that the arrival of autonomous robotic workers in an office space isn't particularly likely because when it comes to being resourceful, its humans who are the best equipped.

"If you want the most advanced, easiest to produce, easiest to maintain general purpose mechanical handling device with limited powers restricted to certain environments, then they're sitting in this room, it's humans," he explained.

However, decisions about what the human workforce should do could be undertaken by an artificial intelligence, which would make them in a logical and non-discriminatory manner.

"When you come to this question of machines and robots taking over jobs then you actually have a more realistic and logical outcome that the machines make the decisions and we do the work," he said, arguing that with machines "you're never going to get the boss from Hell".

"You have a boss that's objective, that doesn't have prejudices, that doesn't have gender discrimination, always makes the right decision and never has a bad day; things would be good," Prentice explained, although he admitted "at the same time most people would find it a complete anathema to work for a machine".

Dr Stuart Armstrong, a James Martin Research Fellow at the University of Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute, pointed to research suggesting that management is one of the least likely job roles to be automated.

"What they found was the least automatable things were in three categories: certain types of creative skills, social skills and manipulation, the dexterity of picking up a pen. And I think the managers maxed out on social skills," he said.

"Most managers I've seen have been very skilled. Getting humans do something together is really hard."

Dr Armstrong also warned that the creators of general artificial intelligence will need to be cautious about the instructions they code into intelligent machines, because even a benign command such as 'prevent human suffering' could be translated as 'kill all humans', unless ethical and philosophical boundaries are properly defined in coding.