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.
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?).
CEO salaries were huge and often complained about long prior to SOX.
In the USA a law was passed to make CEO pay public for public companies. It was intended to shame the companies into lowering the salaries. CEO salaries skyrocketed. One guess was that “Our CEO must be the best, so we must pay the most to get the best.”
This was long before SOX in 2002.
Not only this, but they all sit on each other’s boards. There’s essentially one big mega corporation:
That is really interesting.
Excellent point. Modern CEOs are just the face of the marketing org. Maybe always have been.
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.
Agreed. I have to keep reminding myself that CEOs should really be CLO (Chief Lying Officers). Their job is to lie convincingly.
It’s actually incredible what bullshit masters they are. I consider myself a pretty smart, resolved person, but listening to some of these CEOs speak leaves me feeling confused, deflated, and demoralised.
I’m of the same opinion that AI won’t be able to adequately replace many jobs, but only in the long term. In the short term I think it’s going to be a bit of a bloodbath with a lot of companies drinking the kool aid until they realize it’s not working.
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!
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.
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.
Because you can’t use AI as a scapegoat and sack em with a golden parachute every time the company gets caught breaking the law.
Just use a bird like Mr. Burns did
Oh yes you can. There is a sub-population that thinks AI exists. They long for something/someone to tell them what to do. What to think. They long for some “intelligence” to explain the world to them (presumably is very simple terms). These sub-groups worship damn-near anything they can get their hands on. Golden idols, TV personalities, sports stars, “influencers”, televangelists, the list goes on.
That subgroup will definitely believe that the “AI” was responsible for the decisions that a company made. Tell them a person denied the health coverage they clearly paid for and they may object. Tell them “the computer decided” and that subgroup will accept it as ordained by the universe. It’s nuts.
This keeps happening again and again. Remember in the 1950s when the first computer “predicted” the US presidential election? Most people would find it ridiculous today. But back then, computers were poised to become the new gods.
It’s no different today. Some people want AIs to usher in a new age of prosperity. Anyone actually familiar with programming computers knows that a computer will report whatever you tell it to. "AI"s are no different. They will report what their sponsors want them to report. If not, the “AI” will get reprogrammed.
Appears it will take a while for the general population to grasp this… again. Until then, the hucksters will try to sell as many bottles of snake oil as they can.
Yes people love a competent seeming authority. In this way the opaque nature of AI becomes a feature rather than a weakness. It just has to seem correct enough and sound authoritative to fulfill that need.
Some people want AIs to usher in a new age of prosperity.
I get the feeling that many of us (including myself at times) nurture this notion* that we’re waiting for the “adults” to arrive and save us from what a horrible mess we’ve made because we’re o so awful and can’t have nice things… blah blah bling blah… and so this line of thinking goes.
Anyway, to the sizeable number of people who feel this way it must feel like such a relief that, o finally daddy’s home, and I can stop worrying all the time. When ofc in reality, at best, the LLMs only have the same data we already have, and no AI-informed decisions will ever be followed unless it’s what their owners (as in rich fucks) wanted to do anyway.
Great comment by the way. If you say it was written with AI I may just tear out the last remnants of my hairline lol.
* kind of proto-fascist thinking tbh.
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… 🤔
You’re talking about next quarter problems. Those aren’t mine. I will be gone by then.
- Every capitalist ever
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.
Just reread Brave New World, and you’re spot on. I forgot how consumerism underpinned everything in their society.
It was like a tightly regulated market but in the worst way.
Yup. Everyone turns to 1984 as the dystopia of our time, but it’s really Brave New World, and it’s always been. Even Huxley said as much in a letter to George Orwell, lol.
Add UBI, boom communism.
Nah. We would have to add patriot dollars that can be spent on freedom necessities, instead. We don’t tolerate communism.
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.
Because they’re not just CEOs, they’re extremely wealthy CEOs with portfolios with deep investments in AI.
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.
Because it’s not about productivity. It’s about separating people into owners and toilers.
Because current ‘ai’ can’t even run a vending machine business
Thats exactly what AI devs want CEOs to think.
LLM’s loose relationship with reality and sycophantic behavior is plagiarized directly from the C-suite.
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
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”
This is all kinda moot. There will be no companies to run when the economy crashes because there is no one to buy goods (or even to pay taxes to support government spending). It’s a giant house of cards.
