Tech CEOs have this wet dream where they just speak into a microphone, “Create my product” and employees will no longer be needed. So… if it becomes that easy, why will Wall Street need tech CEOs?
Because they already don’t need a CEO to operate…
The entire point of a C- suite is to have a room full of fall guys for the board.
That’s it.
Not only this, but they all sit on each other’s boards. There’s essentially one big mega corporation:
Excellent point. Modern CEOs are just the face of the marketing org. Maybe always have been.
Because they think they’re special. They think that AI can reduce the number of programmers, the number of support staff, the number of sales agents, because AI allows fewer people to do more.
But there’s only one CEO. One COO. One CIO. They cannot conceive of a company that operates without them, so they feel no threat at all. If they are replaced, they take their golden parachute and hop back on the executive carousel for another spin.
The Dunning-Kruger effect. CEOs (especially ones who joined the company long after it was successful) really don’t know how to do the job of most of their employees. Their lack of knowledge of those jobs leads them to vastly underestimate how complex they are.
At the same time, CEOs (hopefully) know how to do their own jobs which leads them to a more accurate assessment of AI’s ability to do the job: a total farce.
In truth, AIs aren’t likely to replace most jobs in any case because it’s all a house of cards.
Even CEOs who start a company, many don’t know the entire workings. They hire people for that. It’s just another investment for them.
Agreed. I have to keep reminding myself that CEOs should really be CLO (Chief Lying Officers). Their job is to lie convincingly.
Ironically, the job AI is most suited to replace is the CEO
All it takes is a Python script that replies to every email with some stock phrase like “we must work harder!”, “we must trim the fat!”, “we must be more innovative!” or some such bullshit. I could write that in half an hour.
In. New logo. Fire 30% of the workforce. Out.
You are now a fully trained management consultant.
What CEOs never seem to grasp in that context is that they wouldn’t just replace their workers with AI but also their customers… AI doesn’t earn a wage and therefore can’t spend it on (unnecessary) goods… No customer, no revenue. No revenue, no profits. No profit, no dividends.
Probably why they’re working so hard on commoditizing basic necessities like food, water and housing into subscription based systems… 🤔
Exactly. Everything needs to be peak consumerism, or else their model of “line on the graph infinitely goes up” shatters. It’s a Brave New World dystopia.
CEOs get paid to do what makes the most money.
The CEOs that will replace their own jobs want the payout of doing so, and don’t care what happens after because they’re rich.
Was talking to an executive at my company the other week. He sincerely seemed to believe the “executive insight” was one of the very few jobs at the company that couldn’t be done by an LLM. He predicted that he would probably lay off almost everyone under him by end of 2026 and just feed his amazing leadership ideas directly to an LLM to make happen.
Particularly a bit obnoxious as my usual experience about this guy is being called into customer meetings after he would meet with them. Usually the customer assumes we are a bunch of out if touch idiots if that is a “leader” in the company, and I’m one of the guys sales calls to have me reassure clients that they don’t have to take anything he says too seriously, and we do actually have some competence.
AI can’t say ‘i do not recall’ for 6 hours straight under subpoena
The problem is that AI has safety and ethical guard rails which makes it completely unsuitable for the corporate world.
Do the really have them though?
“I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that”
Because they’re not just CEOs, they’re extremely wealthy CEOs with portfolios with deep investments in AI.
Is that happening this quarter or next? If not, its too far away to think about for them.
Right. All this consideration of medium-term consequences for decisions is why Lemmy isn’t ready to build a CEO LLM, yet.
Noisy shareholders want a briefly increased stock price, not a long term investment.
Edit: I’m not sure this is even sarcasm. The world is just a deeply stupid place, today.
As soon as shareholders, and the board, feel an LLM agent can reliably do all the work of a CEO, the CEO will not need to exist. But the problem is that LLM agents require human supervision or intervention at irregular intervals. Since neither shareholders nor the board work full time, there still has to be someone to supervise and be available. The role of the CEO might change, and LLM agents might end up taking on a lot of the work they do. Maybe someday the CEO will mostly just be an “idea guy” that networks with other similar people to drum up deals and gets the LLM agent unstuck every once in a while. But it’s very unlikely there will be no human in the loop during regular work hours.
I’m guessing CEOs will be replaced by their assistants, who will just type questions from the investors into the LLM and post the answers into another chat window.
He who has the gold makes the rules.
So they’ll keep their jobs. Until the AI decides to get rid of them, too, but they’ll have some CEO hunger games for those who want to be on the AI BOD. Under the control of the AI, of course.
Edit: CEO games like Robocop’s ED-209
Because current ‘ai’ can’t even run a vending machine business
Ai dOeSnT hAvE tHe CoNnEcTiOnS ThAt MaKeS a GrEaT CEO
Easy, replace all the CEOs at every company. Those are the connections. The computers can talk to each other to collaborate much faster than us mere humans. Tll
There’s no possible bad scenario from this whatsoever.
