By Daniel Rigney
There’s a new boss in town at PayDayLoanz, a Phoenix-based lending firm that serves down-market clients in the southwest border states. PDL’s new head is no ordinary CEO, but an executive robot, housed in a black box the size of a Rubic’s Cube, that runs algorithms simulating the decision-making processes of the company’s former head, Rex Baktax.
The box has customized attachments that enable it to sign threatening collection letters and pink slips.
The executive robot is the latest advance in the development of ‘expert systems’ that simulate the thought processes and decisions of physicians, attorneys, chessmasters, and other cognitive elites.
Baktax left the firm, according his own public relations algorithms, to “explore other opportunities” and to “spend more time with my resumé."
The few remaining human employees at the mostly automated company have nicknamed their new boss “Cubie,” after its rubic shape. Nora Panefrin, a human interface specialist at the company, says Cubie is “just like the old boss,” but less mean-spirited. “Work has become more humane around here since Cubie was plugged into to the top slot,” she says.
Vice Presidents at the firm are less sanguine about the prospect of expert executive systems. “Finance isn’t just ‘moneyball,' is it?’, wonders one unnamed CFO, referencing the popular baseball movie that depicts the advancing automation of the role of the major league manager.
Company owner Victor Norseman, responding to questions via email from his artificial island in the Pacific, is more bullish about Cubie's early performance. “I had no idea there were so many mathematical ways to game the usury laws,” Norseman marveled. “This ensemble of CEO apps will pay for itself by the end of the next quarter. You can’t beat it for efficiency and cost-effectiveness."
Norseman says he won't be surprised if other companies begin replacing top executives with robots like Cubie. "If I were a young manager right now," he warns, "I'd be more than a little worried about my future."
"What will these techies come up with next?," he muses. "Expert systems that simulate techies themselves?"
Danagram
:] for The Progress Report, the magazine that doesn’t exist yet
For more on the automation of everything, see The Algorithmic Society. See also Con Chapman’s Robot Fires Human, which inspired this human interface story.
There’s a new boss in town at PayDayLoanz, a Phoenix-based lending firm that serves down-market clients in the southwest border states. PDL’s new head is no ordinary CEO, but an executive robot, housed in a black box the size of a Rubic’s Cube, that runs algorithms simulating the decision-making processes of the company’s former head, Rex Baktax.
The box has customized attachments that enable it to sign threatening collection letters and pink slips.
The executive robot is the latest advance in the development of ‘expert systems’ that simulate the thought processes and decisions of physicians, attorneys, chessmasters, and other cognitive elites.
Baktax left the firm, according his own public relations algorithms, to “explore other opportunities” and to “spend more time with my resumé."
The few remaining human employees at the mostly automated company have nicknamed their new boss “Cubie,” after its rubic shape. Nora Panefrin, a human interface specialist at the company, says Cubie is “just like the old boss,” but less mean-spirited. “Work has become more humane around here since Cubie was plugged into to the top slot,” she says.
Vice Presidents at the firm are less sanguine about the prospect of expert executive systems. “Finance isn’t just ‘moneyball,' is it?’, wonders one unnamed CFO, referencing the popular baseball movie that depicts the advancing automation of the role of the major league manager.
Company owner Victor Norseman, responding to questions via email from his artificial island in the Pacific, is more bullish about Cubie's early performance. “I had no idea there were so many mathematical ways to game the usury laws,” Norseman marveled. “This ensemble of CEO apps will pay for itself by the end of the next quarter. You can’t beat it for efficiency and cost-effectiveness."
Norseman says he won't be surprised if other companies begin replacing top executives with robots like Cubie. "If I were a young manager right now," he warns, "I'd be more than a little worried about my future."
"What will these techies come up with next?," he muses. "Expert systems that simulate techies themselves?"
Danagram
:] for The Progress Report, the magazine that doesn’t exist yet
For more on the automation of everything, see The Algorithmic Society. See also Con Chapman’s Robot Fires Human, which inspired this human interface story.
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