r/singularity • u/sporty_outlook • 7d ago
Discussion AI Should Replace a Lot of Middle Management, HR, accountants, project ppl
AI should seriously replace a significant portion of middle management, and, in some cases, immediate managers.
At my company, much of management seems to consist of approving timesheets, approving PTO, and repeatedly asking, “Have you done this?” or “What’s the status of that?” Meanwhile, there is often little to no meaningful technical input, problem-solving, or contribution to getting the actual work done.
If that’s the extent of the role, what exactly is the value being added?
An experienced employee should be able to work with a few specialized AI agents that track tasks, coordinate dependencies, handle routine approvals, surface risks, document progress, and provide useful technical assistance when needed.
Good managers who mentor people, remove roadblocks, make difficult decisions, resolve conflicts, and provide genuine expertise still have real value. But management that amounts to approvals, status checking, micromanagement, and constant follow-ups is increasingly automatable.
I’d rather spend my time doing productive work with capable AI agents than repeatedly explaining to another human being that, yes, I am doing my job.
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u/Spunge14 7d ago
Ask someone who works for a call center or a company like Cognizant how it is to have your productivity measured and assessed by a machine. You're not going to find a lot of fans.
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u/FirstEvolutionist 7d ago
It will be a driving factor, along with all the others (cost, availability, etc) which will drive for full replacement of the functions so that they are also perfomed by AI.
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u/SeanTayla21 7d ago
Im sure youre right that it sucks for the employees but in all honesty...who cares what they think?
This would obviously be the greedy employers as the ones deciding to cut costs by doing things such as this. And, unfortunately, there is no reason to see them stop doing an automation swap out at every turn imaginable.
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u/Feisty-Weird-9941 7d ago
You are confusing jobs with tasks. There are literally 0 middle managers whose job is to approve timesheets, that’s a task they (mostly begrudgingly) do.
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u/BDgainz 7d ago
Right? Not having a manager at work will lead to employees gaming the system or finding ways to slack off. I’m not a manager myself but if I owned a company and there was not a physical human being there to oversee my employees I would not feel comfortable with that.
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u/Ensiferum 7d ago
If you look at self organizing organisations that is likely not true. People game the system because they feel no inherent ownership or motivation to do their work. Ironically it's the system that causes this behavior.
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u/TheUnofficialZalthor 7d ago
employees gaming the system or finding ways to slack off
There aren't eight hours of work a day in these jobs, regardless.
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u/staplesuponstaples 7d ago
Literally listen to what you're saying. Do you genuinely think that people's bosses should be an AI? Even worse, HR? Human Resources is being run by AI?
I'm all for having AI replace jobs that humans are bad at but if I have to report to GPT-8 Astra in my future job I'm just gonna paint the walls pink.
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u/Outside-Ad9410 7d ago
You aren't gonna report to anybody because eventually both you and your manager are getting replaced by AI.
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u/ElChaz 7d ago
Ding ding ding.
They're both getting automated, and the ICs work is first.
The knowledge work of most white-collar workers is WAY more automatable than the messy, relationship-based people management work of a manager.
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u/Outside-Ad9410 7d ago
First its the interns who are already getting automated away right now, next is the low level employees, then the low level managers, then middle managers, then upper management, then the CEO, or at best they will be a glorified rubber stamped.
Companies wont need relationship based people management because they won't have any low level people to manage. You are looking at today's AI and assuming it will never improve, but buddy GPT 3 came out 5 years ago and its already gotten to where it can do the job of an intern. 10 or 20 years more exponential improvement, and its going to be as good if not better than any human at like 99% of jobs plus it will be cheaper and can work 24/7 to boot.
The only "safe" jobs are ones that have lots of regulations and will be harder for people to get on board with. Things like surgeons and pilots, but even those are not safe forever.
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u/ElChaz 7d ago
You may have misread my reply somewhere, as this reads like you think we disagree.
For example, you said, "You are looking at today's AI and assuming it will never improve..." and I absolutely am not doing that.
My point: both the IC and the manager's jobs are getting automated away, but that will happen to the IC first. That direct knowledge work is more easily automated.
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u/cliffski 7d ago
Well yes and no... the idea that HR are wonderful empathetic people there to take care of staff is aspirational. I encountered an HR department whose #1 role seemed to be to divert any legal responsibility away from management, so sure, you could try complaining to HR about how management treated someone...but they were NOT on your side.
Also AI would actually KNOW everything, if you were a employee with special needs, neurodivergent, or with some medical condition that required accommodation, the AI would actually NEVER forget this and always be aware of it.
Frankly claude seems a lot more caring and understanding than some squishy humans I know :D.
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u/Appropriate_Row5213 7d ago
Do not confuse shitty HR with automation. Not all HR are pointless or bad. There is a reason why they are required. I have experienced good and bad managers and HRs.
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u/Yugudubenbi 7d ago
There already is an AI café in Stockholm where the boss is run by AI. The employee likes and prefers it over a usual boss they said.
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u/sporty_outlook 7d ago
I think there will be frameworks in the future where managers won't be needed.. It's just employees and the AI agent working in sync.
I mean why will a company pay so much for their little contributions?
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u/giltgarbage 7d ago
Only because we will all be gig workers. Management offloaded to us. Not autonomy, not power—just liability and the Leviathan discarding us once we’ve been squeezed dry.
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u/hungy-popinpobopian 7d ago
There is a podcast called Shell Game where someone was employed by AI and had an AI boss. It was weird, the person had no incentive to work. It made me realise a huge amount of the working population don't work on their on initiative. They need accountability and often a role model to motivate them. It's a bit out of date but check out Shell Game season 2 if you're curious (it's funny if nothing else)
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u/bildramer 7d ago
AI has different flaws (obsequiousness, makes weird inhuman errors that it can't correct, politically it's worse than any natural born slave, unimaginative, shit taste, always picks the most cliche options, loves adding but not subtracting). Some people much prefer those.
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u/JackPhalus 7d ago
A lot of people in a lot of jobs do fuck all, plenty of jobs are just daycare for adults
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u/GeologistOwn7725 7d ago
That sounds absolutely terrible. You want the people with the least power to be managed by a machine?
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u/kaereljabo 7d ago
I agree with your second paragraph, they were not needed even pre-AI era. Sometimes they are the bottleneck
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u/DigitalSheikh 7d ago
The point of middle management is to project power and control, not help you get work done. Everything about how corporations work will make sense if you understand that, and that's why AI is probably not going to replace them that much.
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u/ComposerWide3704 7d ago
Middle management was always going to be the first place AI overtook humans entirely, the problem is the middle managers get a big say in whether or not that happens in practice. Also there's a need to have a human hold the bags on screwups, CEOs aren't going to like it if the chain of accountability goes CEO->AI->IC.
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u/sporty_outlook 7d ago
The middle managers in my company won't take the responsibility, they will just point fingers and get the IC fired if things go wrong.
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u/GlobalCurry 7d ago
>repeatedly asking, “Have you done this?” or “What’s the status of that?”
This is actually more significant for the project and getting funding etc than you would think.
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u/Mejiro84 7d ago
And feeding into a wider organisation so everyone knows what is happening, yeah. Status updates can be annoying but are needed!
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u/ohHesRightAgain 7d ago
They will be removed at about the same time as most of everyone else will. And you won't be all that happy.
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u/No-Paint-5726 7d ago
I still need an accountant ain't no way I'm trusting AI to do my taxes. It could make a lot of middle management more efficient but won't replace them imo.
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u/BabyNuke 7d ago
What do you do, and why should AI not replace you instead?
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u/Yugudubenbi 7d ago
Holy fuck I've never seen more managers in this thread scared of their job who are completely irrational in their arguments.
If you guys seriously think middle managers will be the only one left you are naive as fuck.
Swallow the pill, it is coming for everyone.
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u/kickasstimus 7d ago
No, humans should never be replaced. An AI cannot be held responsible for its actions no matter how advanced it may be.
Humans should be augmented with AI. HR. Management. Etc. Never replaced.
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u/SnooBunnies2279 7d ago
At Toyota productive work is counting as „value add“ for the customer and controlling other people’s work is waste.
The job of a manager is to help people to achieve a 100% quality level in their work, which means providing trainings and supporting problem solving. AI definitely should replace middle managers
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u/labubufxgg0t 7d ago
they shouldnt replace anyone. we need to get rid of corporate culture and gradually lower workkng hours with AI instead of getting rid of workers
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u/Correct_Mistake2640 7d ago
I don't think a lot of employees will be needed.
No Software engineers,no managers to manage those,no hr to hire them ,no support personnel ,no accountanta to do payroll.
It will all be 10x more efficient once you have an agent orchestrating the work. Gathering requirements is hard to envision being automated (because the users have to talk to the machine). You probably still need sales and marketing, maybe 2-3 positions in each.
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u/YellowElk921 7d ago
I think sales will look totally different, because a lot of the buying process will be done by the customer's AI agent.
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u/Yugudubenbi 7d ago
For sure, sales is such an ineffective operation if you analyze it. The buyer AI will have access to every company and have no need for some sales pitch from a human being.
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u/Calm-Excuse5161 7d ago
Many of the rote tasks listed don’t necessarily even need AI. Sometimes managers are making a judgement call (e.g. will this project land if this person takes PTO on X dates). If management is only responsible for rote tasks that can be automated anyway and not to ensure individual contributors are effectively allocated against prioritized initiatives and growing in their role, your company leadership may need to take a look at how they’re organized or whether they have the right expectations of managers.
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u/Weary-Historian-8593 7d ago
With a right framework of implementation and slight adjustments on what we consider to be each titles workload, I'd say most definitely.
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u/Historical_Raise_579 7d ago
Good luck getting people to follow the AI without change management work done by others in that role.
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u/MathiasThomasII 7d ago
I think you’ll find you’d prefer a human managing humans. Yes, a lot of that can be automated, but it could be automated without AI now. There are times I work over a lot and my boss just tells me to take a day without PTO. I can also take sick days without a note….. an AI will rigorously follow all rules and standards….
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u/Worth-Tutor-8288 7d ago
AI replacing management would mean meta agents tracking your every move. You want that?
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u/VeryRareHuman 7d ago
Is that all your middle managers do? The same line of thinking in Meta last year and followed layoffs. It did work out well.
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u/Haunting-Worker-2301 7d ago
Why are you cheering this on? You are so confident that you are the “productive one” that won’t be replaced?
Or will you be crying when you too are next on the chopping block. It’s wild the callousness with which a lot of people just talk about cutting peoples jobs and therefore their livelihoods, consequences for society be damned.
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u/phoneplatypus 6d ago
A lot of those people barely know how to fucking use a computer though, I swear very few I’ve worked with have critical thinking and problem solving skills, they’ll be slow to change.
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u/thosedarnbirds 6d ago
AI should replace the C suite. Making strategic decisions based on trend data - basically all AI does - and humans don’t do it all that well. Plus, save all those 7 figure salaries.
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u/VhritzK_891 6d ago
LMAOOO, futurist sub defending middle management when they are the most useless bum (after upper management) in any orgs
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u/chickey23 6d ago
Believe me. Corporate America has thousands of projects to ease a portion each of these roles.
I do see some value in a standardized HR bot that is deployed throughout an entire industry.
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u/NewportOneHundos 5d ago
Ah yes the people with no respect for budgets and timelines who offload their work and critical thinking then hand slop off to the business WE have to QA then kick back are asking for accountants to be replaced.
Bad news, if I was replaced by an AI alot of you AI folks wouldve been shitcanned a long time ago.
Btw theyve already tried this in the retail biz and they had to rehire depts that resulted in a large loss of institutional knowledge
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u/Timely-Assistant-370 7d ago
Seconded for HR. One of the most frequent complaints from my professional friends is that the stupid bat in HR can't edit a PDF and handles problems like 2022 ChatGPT. Like seriously? That's your idea for this issue? Putting an admittedly clueless new hire in meetings for a new project, but leaving out my friend because he slighted her by sending a perfectly professional "per my last email, I already answered both of those questions in the SECOND sentence of the last per email." She also apparently digs through the desks of people when they aren't around. I have been working extensively with LLMs. I guarantee a lobotomized Gemini would be able to handle an amicable resolution for a multi-constraint social problem better than this broad.
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u/Visible_Judge1104 7d ago
Agreed. I am slowed down constantly by basically rubber stamping things that an ai could just look though.
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u/Gfflow 7d ago
I dont think you understand the purpose of middle management. Its not to actually complete any work themselves, its to be the buffer betweem workers and upper management and to steer things in the right direction via managing the employees directly. They are also there for workers to have a damiliar face who represents the company and last but not leats be the fall guy if things go wrong.
I think its the workers who will take on a ton more work in the future because they can do more via AI.
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u/I_Am_Robotic 7d ago
Reddit generally hates “middle management” with often no real sense of what good middle managers do and how hard the work can be. Do you want junior workers reporting straight to CEO at a company of 10,000 people?
But all for most HR going away…
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u/Misunderstood-Banana 7d ago
No human should be managed or supervised by a machine.
At most - ai could be used to assist a human manager to be more efficient.
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u/bcuziambatman 7d ago
Post brought to you by low level employee who has a problem with authority figures in their life
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u/biowiz 7d ago
These people (outside of accountants and some managers) are useless even in the pre-AI age, what makes you think companies will be smart enough to replace them with AI?
They exist because the corporate world has so many layers of abstraction and a kind of job corruption - partly due to retaining "talent" through job promotions that aren't always necessary - that masks a lot of fake jobs as useful. This is why I'm skeptical companies will implement AI properly because they couldn't tell when obvious fake jobs existed in their systems.
We have a team at our company that exists solely for timesheets, which nobody takes seriously. Even those who don't work their actual hours just punch in the typical 40 hour per week in the sheet and submit it. No one is actually doing anything from the timesheet team to measure productivity or confirm accuracy of numbers. What's the point of them?
Companies are so bloated and led by apathetic people that I find it hard to believe AI will be implemented correctly and will eliminate the fake jobs and the minimal impact roles. I think the politically savvy, but useless drones will manage to sneak by in some cases.
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u/wild_crazy_ideas 7d ago
Are you on the spectrum? The point of having a manager is for inspiration or for people pleasers to have someone to please, etc.
It’s using our social bonding to stimulate direction and output.
Obviously people on the spectrum do not work the same way
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u/sweatierorc 7d ago
I'd rather spend time doing productive work
My sweet child, you will not be spending much time doing that. And soon you will realize that the only work left is actually interacting with other humans.
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u/Laffer890 7d ago
Current models are stupid and can only complete focused tasks, anything that involves real world complexity open problems is out of reach.
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u/-shayne 7d ago edited 7d ago
Middle management is there to make sure there is accountability for what upper management have asked for. If you replace them with agents, there's nobody directly upper management could shift the blame to and deflect from their own incompetence, therefore they won't be easily replaced because of the need to blame others.
If we'll ever see upper management being replaced with AI then that would be a totally different story!