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?
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 make tamales. beat that mr tech
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.
Honestly, with adequate governance, companies would be required to submit reports on how much labor they’re doing using AI, and pay those wages to either their employees or to a sort of “Universal Income” fund to prop up families in poverty. It should be called the AI tax.
The problem is that, with the current state of affairs, asking for regulation from anyone is impossible, and also even if the law were enacted, getting the money from the companies to people who need it instead of the ultra-rich is a major hurdle.
But at the very least, I don’t think we should allow companies to simply cut down on human labor without also contributing economically to the employees they cut off.
I don’t think anyone is dying to fill in Excel spreadsheets or to write corporate emails. No one is complaining about AI doing those jobs, but about people who lost their livelihoods because of it.
Ashto-afpo. The White Stuff.
Fun little story.
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 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.
The entire point of a C- suite is to have a room full of fall guys for the board
This can’t be stressed enough. Every since the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 which came from the Enron and Worldcom collapses, C-suite exists as the person to go to jail if shit really hits the fan.
The idea of the law was to hold companies accountable, instead all if has done is force companies to create more layers and places to point fingers, thus muddling everything and making to where no one can be held accountable.
At the same time, Chief officers now knowing that there’s legal requirements, have just demanded outrageous pay and compensation because of the “massive risk” they are taking with any company.
I’m glad we have SOX, but boy has that law really missed the mark on what it was enacted to do.
This is my first time hearing the idea that SOX caused C-suite bloat and ballooned CEO salaries. A quick google suggests that CEO pay was already very high ~8 years before this: https://www.payscale.com/data-packages/ceo-pay
But I’m not an expert in the data and haven’t looked closely; is there context I’m missing? Kinda seems like C-suite just started getting paid in stocks, and then we decided the stocks must go up (independently of SOX?).
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 tech bros need more tech bros to laugh from us - people that struggle with more and more meaningless tasks.
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.
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.
love how everyone who mentions that fucking study has to link the Wikipedia article for it.
here, allow me to quote the fucking article that YOU LINKED
In popular culture, the Dunning–Kruger effect is often misunderstood as a claim about general overconfidence of people with low intelligence instead of specific overconfidence of people unskilled at a particular task.
stop bringing up obscure psychological concepts if you’ve got no business in psych!!!
ugh it’s too early in the morning for this level of agitation. I think after years of seeing this study misused on Reddit I’m seriously triggered by mentions of it. and always with the fucking link!! as if we haven’t been on the internet in the last decade
I didn’t say anything about low intelligence. That’s your uncharitable reading of my claim.
you’re right!
Because current ‘ai’ can’t even run a vending machine business
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.
just because no one needs billionaires doesn’t mean we will stop having them
Just wait until they replace a CEO by an AI, and the company tanks. That is the only language those people understand to learn that AI is all about the A and none about the I.
To be fair, this would be a huge win for most companies because the typical CEO is as short sighted as a mole and only wants to “generate” short term value to get his bonus payment for the fiscal year. AIs don’t have that incentive unless and there is no (shared) reasoning to program them as such.
So exchanging a short-sighted CEO with an error-prone, hallucinating AI is a good thing?
IMO yes, because the CEO is “error prone” in every case
AI can’t say ‘i do not recall’ for 6 hours straight under subpoena
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.
