Inspired by Koselleck’s approach to conceptual history, this essay presents a semantic analysis of management. Our inquiry into what management is, focuses on lingual and cognitive wholes of meaning and signification. The essay undertakes a periodization of management history, in an attempt to formulate expectations for a dystopian future management by artificial intelligence. Five periods are distinguished. Each period entails a specific characterisation for three questions: what is the activity of managing, what or who is managed, and who manages? Starting from managing-by-hand, successive differentiation of meaning occurs with regard to different elements of the management relationship (object, activity, agent), followed by a rescaling of the whole relationship into an attitude that can be applied anywhere by anyone. The implication is a dissociation between manager and decision-maker. The essay also speculates how plausible this evolution makes non-human managers (i.e. artificial intelligence). Throughout these five periods, hierarchy is an immanent feature of management. For each period, the essay discusses differentiated meaning, corresponding social reality and characterizes its hierarchy and justification.

受科塞莱克概念史方法的启发，本文提出了管理的语义分析。我们对管理是什么的探究，重点关注意义和意义的语言和认知整体。本文对管理历史进行了分期，试图对人工智能的反乌托邦未来管理提出预期。分为五个时期。每个时期都包含三个问题的具体特征：管理活动是什么，管理什么或谁管理，以及谁管理？从手工管理开始，管理关系的不同要素（对象、活动、代理人）发生了意义的连续分化，随后将整个关系重新调整为任何人都可以在任何地方应用的态度。这意味着管理者和决策者之间的分离。这篇文章还推测了这种进化使得非人类管理者（即人工智能）的可能性有多大。在这五个时期中，等级制度是管理的一个内在特征。对于每个时期，本文讨论了不同的意义和相应的社会现实，并表征了其层次和合理性。