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Elon Musk’s Archaic Management Style Prioritises Profit Over People
Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter has been rocky, to say the least. Since taking over the company on October 28, Musk has made a number of changes to the platform, resulting in widespread chaos and turmoil within the company.
Within days of taking over Twitter’s operations, Musk fired top executives and half of the company’s 7,500 employees, ignored advice to not disproportionately fire employees representing diversity and inclusion and has likely violated employment labour laws and breached employee contracts.
Then on November 16, Musk sent an email to remaining workers with an ultimatum: commit to being “extremely hardcore” or leave the company. The letter continued: “This will mean working long hours at high intensity. Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade.” Some workers reportedly ended up sleeping in their offices.
None of this is new for Musk. He already had a history of dismissing executives on a whim and committing mass layoffs at Tesla.
Musk’s cold, impersonal approach to management and leadership is antithetical to what we have learned about kinder, more humanistic approaches to work. Management approaches like Musk’s threaten current business management practices that advocate for healthy, happy and engaged workplaces.
Cogs in a machine
Musk adheres to a mechanistic style of management that treats employees like cogs in a machine, rather than human beings. It’s a well-meaning, but naive indulgence that sacrifices employee well-being for the sake of profit.
The idea of workers being an inert, programmable tool of production has been around for at least a century. One of the earliest proponents of management theory was American engineer Frederick Taylor, who published the landmark text The Principles of Scientific Management in 1910. In it, Taylor wrote: “In the past man has been first. In the future the system must be first…In our scheme, we do not ask for the initiative of our men. We do not want any initiative. All we want of them is to obey the orders we give them, do what we say, and do it quick.”
To Taylor’s credit, the practical application of mechanistic management did result in significant increases in productivity and the economic performance of enterprises. The “people are just machines” approach, however, has a number of shortcomings.
The spread of mechanistic ideas led to employee exploitation, increased staff turnover, conflicts between management and workers and — contrary to supporters of the mechanistic approach — did not lead to the desired harmony and cooperation in enterprises.
This is largely due to the fact that the human factor was given a secondary role to machinery and equipment. This meant that the means of production were valued more than the emotional state of employees. As it turns out, workers are indeed emotional, sentient beings with minds of their own. They are better at their jobs when they are treated as such.
This approach didn’t go unchallenged at the time, however. The rise of mechanistic management resulted in a major backlash from the widespread North American unionisation movement.
Human-centric work
The humanistic approach to management arose in response to the pitfalls of mechanistic management. A humanistic approach prioritises emotionally healthy workplaces, gender equity, respect, anti-harassment, employee engagement, the benefits of intrinsic over extrinsic rewards (feeling good about your work versus making lots of money) and conflict management.
Emotional intelligence, which includes concepts like compassion, empathy, respect and active listening, is also valued in human-centred workplaces. Extensive research on emotional intelligence, including my own, shows that it increases morale, productivity and goal achievement.
The concept of a more humanistic workplace, which is less linear, more organic and prone to evolving than a mechanistic one, has been growing exponentially since the pandemic started. Job dissatisfaction has resulted in employees demanding more human-centric workplaces and standing up for their rights in the workplace.
As business journalist Tom Gibby said in Forbes, employees “are being clear about their needs and wants. If their current employer doesn’t meet those needs, they are finding a new one that does.” Re-writing workplace relations It’s clear that Musk’s workplace culture is anything but healthy. The Government of Canada’s Health Human Resource Strategy defines a healthy work environment as the following: “A work setting that takes a strategic and comprehensive approach to providing the physical, cultural, psychological and work conditions that maximize the health and well being of providers, improves the quality of care and optimizes organizational performance.” Musk is setting a dangerous precedent for other businesses to follow. If his approach to management proves to be successful for Twitter, it could result in other business leaders following his example.
While it might be tempting to follow in Musk’s footsteps, such a decision would go against years of workplace research that shows the positive correlation between how employees feel at work, their emotional and physical wellness, and an organization’s success.
Following in his muddy and erratic footsteps would also result in resurrecting archaic lessons of Taylorism that treat employees like inanimate objects. If this happens, we will surely see an increase in worker-led organisation efforts. The latest pushes for unionisation at Amazon and Apple are proof that employees are willing to stand up for their rights if they are not being valued.
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Meta Proposes Monthly Fee of Up to EUR 13 for Ad-Free Access to Instagram and Facebook: Report
According to a report, Instagram and Facebook could soon be available in some countries without any ads as part of the company’s efforts to comply with privacy regulations. Parent company Meta has reportedly pitched regulators the possibility of offering users the ability to pay a monthly fee instead of viewing personalised ads based on their information. Meta does not currently charge users for access to the company’s core services in any region, but privacy-related regulation is set to impact the company’s revenue that relies on showing its users personalised advertisements.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Meta has proposed charging users in the European Union up to EUR 13 (roughly Rs. 1,130) a month for access to an ad-free version of Facebook or Instagram on mobile — the price for users who sign up via the web browser would be EUR 10 (roughly Rs. 870) as the company wouldn’t need to pay Apple or Google the in-app purchase commission. Users would need to pay another EUR 6 (roughly Rs. 520) for each additional account.
The “subscription no ads” plan — or SNA — will be offered to European users, the company said in discussions with privacy watchdogs in Belgium and Ireland last month, according to the report. However, users in the US and other regions are unlikely to gain access to the ad-free plan in the near future.
Meta’s core services are currently available for free to all users on the platform, and the firm’s photo and video sharing, chat, and social networking services are supported by targeted advertisements that are based on user’s personal information. However, a recently passed regulation in the EU will require Facebook and Instagram to offer users the ability to opt out of the company using their personal information to target them with advertisements.
Last month, it was reported that Meta was mulling paid versions of Instagram and Facebook aimed at EU users, while users who did not pay for a subscription would continue to see ads on the service. The social media giant has already been fined in some regions — including Norway — for failing to comply with privacy regulations and using personal information to show users targeted advertisements.
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Meta Platforms used public Facebook and Instagram posts to train parts of its new Meta AI virtual assistant, but excluded private posts shared only with family and friends in an effort to respect consumers’ privacy, the company’s top policy executive told Reuters in an interview.
Meta also did not use private chats on its messaging services as training data for the model and took steps to filter private details from public datasets used for training, said Meta President of Global Affairs Nick Clegg, speaking on the sidelines of the company’s annual Connect conference this week.
“We’ve tried to exclude datasets that have a heavy preponderance of personal information,” Clegg said, adding that the “vast majority” of the data used by Meta for training was publicly available.
He cited LinkedIn as an example of a website whose content Meta deliberately chose not to use because of privacy concerns.
Clegg’s comments come as tech companies including Meta, OpenAI and Alphabet’s Google have been criticized for using information scraped from the internet without permission to train their AI models, which ingest massive amounts of data in order to summarize information and generate imagery.
The companies are weighing how to handle the private or copyrighted materials vacuumed up in that process that their AI systems may reproduce, while facing lawsuits from authors accusing them of infringing copyrights.
Meta AI was the most significant product among the company’s first consumer-facing AI tools unveiled by CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday at Meta’s annual products conference, Connect. This year’s event was dominated by talk of artificial intelligence, unlike past conferences which focused on augmented and virtual reality.
Meta made the assistant using a custom model based on the powerful Llama 2 large language model that the company released for public commercial use in July, as well as a new model called Emu that generates images in response to text prompts, it said.
The product will be able to generate text, audio and imagery and will have access to real-time information via a partnership with Microsoft’s Bing search engine.
The public Facebook and Instagram posts that were used to train Meta AI included both text and photos, Clegg said.
Those posts were used to train Emu for the image generation elements of the product, while the chat functions were based on Llama 2 with some publicly available and annotated datasets added, a Meta spokesperson told Reuters.
Interactions with Meta AI may also be used to improve the features going forward, the spokesperson said.
Clegg said Meta imposed safety restrictions on what content the Meta AI tool could generate, like a ban on the creation of photo-realistic images of public figures.
On copyrighted materials, Clegg said he was expecting a “fair amount of litigation” over the matter of “whether creative content is covered or not by existing fair use doctrine,” which permits the limited use of protected works for purposes such as commentary, research and parody.
“We think it is, but I strongly suspect that’s going to play out in litigation,” Clegg said.
Some companies with image-generation tools facilitate the reproduction of iconic characters like Mickey Mouse, while others have paid for the materials or deliberately avoided including them in training data.
OpenAI, for instance, signed a six-year deal with content provider Shutterstock this summer to use the company’s image, video and music libraries for training.
Asked whether Meta had taken any such steps to avoid the reproduction of copyrighted imagery, a Meta spokesperson pointed to new terms of service barring users from generating content that violates privacy and intellectual property rights.
© Thomson Reuters 2023
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WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger to Get AI Assistants; Meta Shows Off Image Generation Tool Emu
Meta showcased a host of new products and services, including the Meta Quest 3 mixed reality headset and a pair of smart glasses made in collaboration with Ray-Ban, at its Meta Connect annual conference on Wednesday. Alongside the hardware, the company also announced its own AI assistant, Meta AI, and a variety of AI experiences across Meta’s suite of apps and devices, including AI stickers in Meta apps and AI editing tools for Instagram. Meta AI, a conversational generative AI assistant much like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Microsoft’s Bing, will be available on WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram.
Meta AI will be powered by the company’s custom model that borrows from Meta’s large language model, Llama 2. The AI assistant, Meta said, will provide real-time information in response to text-based queries, trawling the internet via Bing search. Meta AI will also generate images based on text prompts. The AI assistant can help plan hiking trips with your friends in a group chat, prepare recipes, or help with your shopping list. Users can type in “@MetaAI /imagine” inside their chat box and follow it up with descriptive text prompts for what they want the AI assistant to do. Meta AI is also coming to the company’s latest devices, the Meta Quest 3 and the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses.
In addition to its default AI assistant, the company also showed off AI avatars with distinct personalities. Meta is bringing 28 AI characters, each with a unique backstory and behaviour. These AI characters can be conversed with in WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger, and will also include some public figures and influencers that Meta has partnered up with for their likenesses. Famous people coming as AI characters include Dwayne Wade, Kendall Jenner, Mr. Beast, Snoop Dogg and more.
Emu can generate stickers based on user prompts
Photo Credit: Meta
Meta is calling its image generation tool ‘expressive media universe’, or Emu. The tool can also quickly generate AI stickers based on a user’s text prompts inside apps like WhatsApp or Instagram to share with friends. “It’s high-quality, photorealistic,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during the presentation. “But, one of the coolest things is the Emu generates that fast. It’s not a minute. It takes five seconds to generate one of these,” he added. This custom sticker generation feature will roll out to select English-language users over the next month in WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, and Facebook Stories.
The Facebook parent is also bringing new AI-powered image editing tools, specifically two new features — Restyle and Backdrop — that utilise technology from the Emu tool. Restyle acts as a kind of custom filter that works based on user prompts. Based on single descriptor or a more detail prompt, Restyle will edit your images to reflect a particular mood. And as the name suggests, Backdrop will let users change the background of their images based on custom prompts. Images created using both tools will carry markers that indicate the image is AI-generated. Meta said that Restyle and Backdrop were coming soon to Instagram but did not provide a concrete release date for the same.
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