Microsoft’s AI Patent May Wipe Out the Typical Management Hierarchy

Microsoft's new patent AI technology combining the existing Office 365 Productivity Score may lead to middle management's layoff in the future. This leap to conclusion may seem drastic but plausible as we examine the digital transformation trend and the trajectory of the invention of Microsoft AI patent technology.  Let us explore the process of how the simple Productivity Score product from Microsoft may evolve into a new product that could replace the management jobs in the future.

According to Wolfie Christl of the independent Cracked Labs in Vienna, Austria, the initial version Productivity Score has become a full-fledged workplace surveillance tool. He said, "Employers/managers can analyze employee activities at the individual level, for example, the number of days an employee has been sending emails, using the chat, using 'mentions' in emails, etc." Microsoft had a quick response to this backfire feature by removing user names entirely from the product.

Inside the Microsoft 365 admin center, there is a dashboard page that summarizes an organization's productivity by measuring various metrics and displaying them in a Productivity Score. The purpose of the Productivity Score is to give insights into how people experience technology and related experiences. With these experiences, they are further grouped into several categories, such as

Microsoft 365 Admin Center: Dashboard View on Productivity Score

1) The number of ways that the organization use to communicate;

2) The number of meetings and the total meeting time, and how it took place;

3) The degree of collaboration for sharing content online;

4) The percentage of people who share workspaces for measuring the Teamwork metrics;

5) Finally, there are detailed metrics, such as showing how and what devices and apps they use to get work done on their schedule across multiple platforms.

These metrics described here are merely the activities taking place in Microsoft 365. It already received a great deal of criticism. The newly surfaced Microsoft patent filings published in November 2020 indicate the company has a bigger idea about measuring individuals' productivity using AI technology to recognize facial expressions, body gestures, and speakers in the meeting. The patent focuses on getting productivity scores specifically for meeting, as the patent's title is called "Meeting Insight Computing System." The patent filings include using sensors, such as cameras, unspecified sensors, and software tools to monitor the people and the conditions in a meeting. It also includes post-meeting surveys for creating a "quality score" for the meeting.

Jared Spataro, corporate vice president for Microsoft 365, said, "Let me be clear: Productivity Score is not a work monitoring tool," he added. "Productivity Score is about discovering new ways of working, providing your people with great collaboration and technology experiences. It focuses on actionable insights about the ways in which people and teams are using the tools so you can make improvements or provide training to further your digital transformation" on his post on Oct. 29, 2020.

Many times, these metrics look unspectacular, but it could potentially develop into decision-making metrics that could lead to an unintentional consequence. In the era of information expansion, all processes become data driven. Just like all roads lead to Rome, data collection gathered from various metrics eventually get consumed or tabulated, and making decisions is the destiny of these data-collecting efforts. We do not know when Microsoft will turn the AI patent into a product, but we can logically infer a path that this technology may lead to. Let's try to deduce it into possible phases of scenarios.

A Possible Evolution Path for the AI Product

As the system collects more data from various sensors, AI technology is used to recognize data patterns and draw some conclusions from the data. In this initial phase, people feel uncomfortable about being monitored over their behavior and actions, especially as we leave more and more digital footprints into the system. Management begins to utilize these Productivity Score to get insights about a team's overall productivity or an organization. The phase described here is where we are.  

In the later phase, the Productivity Score System may mature into a full Productivity Management system. The management team in the company may begin to set some criteria for the system and could eventually determine which employees are not fit for the job. Whether it's an unintentional or intentional consequence, the evolved features of evaluating personnel by the system may eventually cause the layoff in the middle and lower management as it begins to replace the job function of the traditional management. The team leads or project managers may take over the entire middle or lower management at the end. 

The story of evolution does not end here. There could be more unintentional consequences where technology may lead us. One plausible scenario is that the Productivity Management System may develop into the AI Director. If that’s the case, there will be no need to hire an executive management team since the AI Director could integrate dynamic changes in the market to direct daily business activities and business-making decisions. It eventually replaces the key job function of the executive team.

Look how far we have come from a simple camera to facial recognition capability on streets with AI edge technology to a full-feature investigation bureau. In a similar fashion, firing the boss may become a reality when there is no need to hire the one who makes the executive decision.

Be Alert on How We Choose to Use Technology

We should direct the technology rather than the other way around. Using any technology may lead to unintentional consequences. We should be in control of technology and not become too dependent on it and lose our freedom unintentionally. For instance, by using such a system, the quality of our work could be judged by the confinement of fixed productivity metrics. What are the consequences if we link the data from the productivity metrics to our quarterly performance evaluation? That could spell disaster on how you retain talents or lead to an unintentional consequence on everyone's promotion opportunity.  Humans are living things that need to grow and have the potential to become someone great. There is no way to sense, measure, and judge our actions under these fixed metrics. There is no way to measure our creativity, intelligence, and efforts since our decision or thinking could impact people's lives in terms of years or many lifetimes of human generation. People like Einstein and Tesla are great examples of brilliant people.  I could gaze at something during a meeting while solving a complex issue in my head. No system can measure the productivity of my thought during that fraction of time. But the idea derived from my thought could be the survival of the product or the success of the organization.

On the other hand, the management team should not heavily depend on such a system to know how your team is doing unless you are the only one who manages a team of hundreds of people at the same time. We should know our team members' needs in their work and their difficulties because we are humans and not machines. Strong teamwork comes from within, not magic tools. Even the father of artificial intelligence, Alan Turing, could not have deciphered the German Nazi's enigma code in WWII without his team. 

We should make technology to help us create more values for humanity rather than make humans more machine-like and quantify our actual productivity. In the end, be alert on how we choose to use technology.