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If AI ends up running companies better than people, won’t shareholders demand the switch? A board isn’t paying a CEO $20 million a year for tradition, they’re paying for results. If an AI can do the job cheaper and get better returns, investors will force it.

And since corporations are already treated as “people” under the law, replacing a human CEO with an AI isn’t just swapping a worker for a machine, it’s one “person” handing control to another.

That means CEOs would eventually have to replace themselves, not because they want to, but because the system leaves them no choice. And AI would be considered a "person" under the law.

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[–] CMDR_Horn@lemmy.world 37 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

Several years ago I read an article that went in to great detail on how LLMs are perfectly poised to replace C-levels in corporations. I went on to talk about how they by nature of design essentially do the that exact thing off the bat, take large amounts of data and make strategic decisions based on that data.

I wish I could find it to back this up, but regardless ever since then, I've been waiting for this watershed moment to hit across the board...

[–] Soleos@lemmy.world 21 points 15 hours ago (6 children)

They... don't make strategic decisions... That's part of why we hate them no? And we lambast AI proponents because they pretend they do.

[–] turdas@suppo.fi 37 points 14 hours ago (5 children)

The funny part is that I can't tell whether you're talking about LLMs or the C-suite.

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[–] turkalino@lemmy.yachts 4 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

They do indeed make strategic decisions, just only in favor of the short term profits of shareholders. It’s “strategy” that a 6 yr old could execute, but strategy nonetheless

[–] Soleos@lemmy.world 1 points 9 hours ago

This is closer to what I mean by strategy and decisions: https://matthewdwhite.medium.com/i-think-therefore-i-am-no-llms-cannot-reason-a89e9b00754f

LLMs can be helpful for informing strategy, and simulating strings of words that may can be perceived as a strategic choice, but it doesn't have it's own goal-oriented vision.

[–] OboTheHobo@ttrpg.network 3 points 12 hours ago

I'd argue they do make strategic decisions, its just that the strategy is always increasing quarterly earnings and their own assets.

[–] Yezzey@lemmy.ca 2 points 14 hours ago
[–] MagicShel@lemmy.zip 2 points 14 hours ago

You're right. But then look at Musk. if anyone was ripe for replacement with AI, it's him.

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[–] Yezzey@lemmy.ca 2 points 15 hours ago

Its inevitable.

[–] fadingembers@lemmy.blahaj.zone 30 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

Y'all are all missing the real answer. CEOs have class solidarity with shareholders. Think about about how they all reacted to the death of the United health care CEO. They'll never get rid of them because they're one of them. Rich people all have a keen awareness of class consciousness and have great loyalty to one another.

Us? We're expendable. They want to replace us with machines that can't ask for anything and don't have rights. But they'll never get rid of one of their own. Think about how few CEOs get fired no matter how poor of a job they do.

P.S. Their high pay being because of risk is a myth. Ever heard of a thing called the golden parachute? CEOs never pay for their failures. In fact when they run a company into the ground, they're usually the ones that receive the biggest payouts. Not the employees.

[–] Yezzey@lemmy.ca 7 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

Loyalty lasts right up until the math says otherwise.

[–] roundup5381@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 hours ago

One must include social capital in the math

[–] fadingembers@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 10 hours ago

The math has never made sense for CEOs

[–] blarghly@lemmy.world 1 points 8 hours ago

Wouldn't they just remove the CEO from their role and they would just become another rich shareholder?

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 9 points 14 hours ago

Should be way easier to replace a CEO. No need for a golden parachute, if the AI fails, you just turn it off.

But I'd imagine right now you have CEOs being paid millions and using an AI themselves. Worst of both worlds.

[–] AmidFuror@fedia.io 8 points 5 hours ago

Companies never outsourced the CEO position to countries which traditionally have lower CRO salaries but plenty of competency (e.g. Japan), so they won't do this either. It's because CEOs are controlled by boards, and the boards are made up of CEOs from other companies. They have a vested interest in human CEOs with inflated salaries.

[–] Bongles@lemmy.zip 7 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

AI? Yes probably. Current AI? No. I do think we'll see it happen with an LLM and that company will probably flop. Shit how do you even prompt for that.

[–] Yezzey@lemmy.ca 1 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

It'll take a few years but it progresses exponentially, it will get there.

[–] NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 2 points 13 hours ago (6 children)

It progresses logistically; eventually it'll plateau and there's no reason to believe that plateau will come after "can do everything a human can.". See: https://www.promptlayer.com/research-papers/have-llms-hit-their-limit

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[–] flandish@lemmy.world 6 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

in all dialectical seriousness, if it appeases the capitalists, it will happen. “first they came with ai for the help desk…” kind of logic here. some sort of confluence of Idiocracy and The Matrix will be the outcome.

[–] Ging@anarchist.nexus 2 points 14 hours ago

You mean dialectical whimsiness

[–] Yezzey@lemmy.ca 2 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

Love that term dialectical seriousness, have to admit i had to look it up :)

[–] ArgumentativeMonotheist@lemmy.world 6 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

No, because someone has to be the company's scapegoat... but if the ridiculous post-truth tendencies of some societies increase, then maybe "AI" will indeed gain "personhood", and in that case, maybe?

[–] Yezzey@lemmy.ca 3 points 13 hours ago

I don't see any other future.

[–] blarghly@lemmy.world 4 points 8 hours ago

If AI ends up running companies better than people, won’t shareholders demand the switch?

Yes. It might be unorthodox at first, but they could just take a vote, and poof, done.

And since corporations are already treated as “people” under the law, replacing a human CEO with an AI isn’t just swapping a worker for a machine, it’s one “person” handing control to another.

Wat?

No. What?

So you just used circular logic to make the AI a "person"... maybe you're saying once it is running the corporation, it is the corporation? But no.

Anyway, corporations are "considered people" in the US under the logic that corporations are, at the end of the day, just collections of people. So you can, say, go to a town hall to voice your opinion as an individual. And you can gather up all your friends to come with you, and form a bloc which advocates for change. You might gain a few more friends, and give your group a name, like "The Otter Defence League." In all these scenarios, you and others are using your right to free speech as a collective unit. Citizens United just says that this logic also applies to corporations.

That means CEOs would eventually have to replace themselve

CEOs wouldn't have to "replace themselves" any more than you have to find a replacement if your manager fires you from Dairy Queen.

[–] Iron_Lynx@lemmy.world 4 points 1 hour ago

> company gets super invested in AI.
> replaces CEO with AI.
> AI does AI stuff, hallucinaties, calls for something inefficient and illegal.
> 4 trillion investor dollars go up in flames.
> company goes under, taking AI hype market down with it

And nothing of value will be lost.

[–] MITM0@lemmy.world 3 points 3 hours ago

Would be cool & funny if they did.

[–] LadyMeow@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Isn’t this sorta paradoxical? Like either ceos are actually worth what insane money they make, or a palm pilot could replace them, but somehow they are paid ridiculous amounts for…. What?

[–] Soleos@lemmy.world 3 points 14 hours ago (4 children)

No, it's not paradoxical. You are conflating time points.

I won't debate the "value" of CEOs, but in this system, their value is subject to market conditions like any other. Human computers were valued much more before electrical computers were created. Aluminum was worth more than gold before a fast and cheap extraction process was invented.

You could not replace a CEO with a Palm pilot 10 years ago.

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[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 3 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

From what people on Lemmy say, a CEO (and board) isn't there to do a good job they are there to be a fall guy if something goes wrong, protecting shareholders from prosecution. Can AI do that?

[–] Witchfire@lemmy.world 5 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

It can do so even better than a human. They would just announce a patch for it

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[–] Yezzey@lemmy.ca 4 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

I guess in theory there would be no need for a fall guy as AI would cover all angles.

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 1 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

But the fall guy is for things they know they shouldn't do. They aren't trying to only do the things they should.

[–] Yezzey@lemmy.ca 2 points 13 hours ago

Evil companies will have evil AI

[–] motor_spirit@lemmy.world 2 points 15 hours ago

It's what republicans need, yes

[–] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 2 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (1 children)

You're mixing up corporate personhood and the CEO's own personhood. He isn't the corporation. Ultimately, he's just an employee. There's no good reason for the board of directors to pay him if a machine can do a better job while costing less. I'm not sure why you might think that wouldn't happen.

[–] Yezzey@lemmy.ca 2 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

No but the corporation is the person, CEO handing it to AI which then becomes a person.

[–] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 7 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (1 children)

You might want to read more about corporate personhood. It doesn't mean that the corporation is considered by the law to be a person, or that whoever or whatever performs the duties of the CEO is by definition a person. It means that a corporation, despite not being a person, has certain rights usually associated with people. For example, a person can own property or be sued. A cat cannot own property or be sued. A corporation is like a person rather than a cat in that it can also own property or be sued. There's debate about exactly which rights should be granted to corporations, but the idea that a corporation has at least some minimal set of rights is centuries old and an essential part of the very definition of what a corporation is.

[–] Yezzey@lemmy.ca 3 points 14 hours ago

True but corporate personhood already gives the legal shell. If an AI is actually running the company’s decisions, wouldn’t that be the first time in practice that courts are forced to treat an AI’s choices as the will of a legal person? In effect, wouldn’t that be the first step toward AI being judged as a ‘person’ under law?

[–] normalexit@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

I could imagine a world where whole virtual organizations could be spun up, and they can just run in the background creating whole products, marketing them, and doing customer support, etc.

Right now the technology doesn't seem there yet, but it has been rapidly improving, so we'll see.

I could definitely see rich CEOs funding the creation of a "celebrity" bot that answers questions the way they do. Maybe with their likeness and voice, so they can keep running companies from beyond the grave. Throw it in one of those humanoid robots and they can keep preaching the company mission until the sun burns out.

What a nightmare.

[–] kingprawn@feddit.org 2 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Check out the novel Accelerando by Charles Stross, that thing is part of the plot.

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[–] melsaskca@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

That would free up a whole shitload of money for the citizens! /s

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