Thread

1. hammock · 1790980426 · focus · HN ↗

   A lot of (non-software) business is already like this, without the AI part.

   There are 40,000 McDonald’s franchisees who basically just put money into a coinop machine and the machine returns with exactly the food, drinks, restaurant decor, prices, etc that it wants them to sell.

   Toyota’s production system coordinates what gets made and when, detects abnormalities and directs human attention toward problems and improvement. They explicitly eliminate the need for people to continuously watch machines, while preserving human judgment

   1. sublinear · 1790984745 · focus · HN ↗

      I think you just precisely laid out why replacing SaaS with AI doesn't work.

      Every contract is different and the majority of the work is "the boring inefficient stuff" that can't be automated away. That is, arguing with shifty and arrogant middle management in a long series of meetings until you get some concrete requirements. Then realizing the metric shit ton of crap to untangle and test rigorously. It's not just a matter of having patience, but being unflinchingly attentive the whole time for the nuggets of gold that fall out of their disgusting mouths and then pouncing with a plan so you don't go over time and budget. AI simply isn't going to grill people like that and then execute swiftly and precisely. A lot of these jobs really are like a murder interrogation and then finding the bodies.

      It's absurd that so many people believe there are unturned stones in this space. If this kind of business could be cookie-cutter, it would have happened over a decade ago and it wouldn't have made any money.

      1. anon84873628 · 1790995704 · focus · HN ↗

         I think I mostly agree with you.

         But I believe a premise of the article is that AI-ification will disrupt the power of those middle managers, probably in a few different ways.

         One is that the middle managers themselves will be replaced by AI. Another is that more purchasing decisions will be made by engineers building the corporate harness on the buyer side. And, probably people will be more accustomed (i.e. forced) to talk to AIs on the other side, or at least accept that the responses are ultimately constrained by them. Going out for a round of golf with the sales guy just can't accomplish anything anymore.

         Every exec team wants this transition to happen, so both buy and sell side will go through great transformation in concert.

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