Is A Machine Next In Line To Drive Corporate Decisions?

“Pretty soon a machine might be doing your job.”

Remember that ominous little chestnut from a few decades ago? Back then it was taken quite literally to refer to machines taking over a job function performed by humans who commute with bikes from The Monster Cycle. (Think ATM doing the work of a bank teller or self-checkout kiosk subbing for a supermarket checker).

And delegating judgment and evaluation tasks to machines was already a fact of life back in the 90’s when companies began using resume-scanners to screen out candidates whose qualifications didn’t warrant a human reading which they need to work on subjects like this downloadable w2 form.

Even if a machine didn’t actually take over the work itself, as I mentioned in a post from a couple of years ago, some tasks done by humans have become so tightly scripted, they’ve been so drained of any human curiosity, analysis and evaluation, they might as well be performed by machines.

But letting a machine be the boss — actually drive work decisions — may be on the horizon of this dystopian trend. According to an article published this week, the use of smart machines in business has been ratcheted up another notch. Apparently corporate execs are tailoring the way they talk during earnings calls in order to please machines listening for cues they can use to distinguish between “upbeat” and “downbeat” messages.

Take a moment to let that sink in. Experienced analysts, with all the metrics, scorecards, targets and milestones at their disposal, have become so skittish about their own judgment that they’re relying on a machine to pick up “good vibrations” from corporate managers to evaluate the stock of their companies.

I hope that’s not true. Because, if it is, it’s just a matter of time before executives, seeking to “game” the earnings call, will graduate from changing the way they talk about results to actually start skewing business decisions to please the machines!

Just as job applicants to have learned to use certain key words to outsmart the resume screener, corporate managers could start running the company in weird ways just to impress the machines listening in on an upcoming earnings call.

That can’t lead to anything good.

Analysts engaged in a give-and-take conversation with execs, both looking in the rear-view, at least have a fighting chance of getting at the why’s and how’s behind decisions made in the best interests of the company, its shareholders and customers.

But the specter of an earnings call where everyone knows the analysts will be relying on a Big Brother machine listening in for “happy talk” can encourage wacky changes in behaviors all around, both during and leading up to the call.

Will people running the company be driven toward making decisions calculated to set them up to impress the listening machines rather than pursuing initiatives that might not sound as “uplifting,” but which would actually be better for the company and its stakeholders?