If CEOs think they can replace everyone with AI, why do they think Wall St. will need CEOs?

Submitted ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨sturger@sh.itjust.works⁩ to ⁨showerthoughts@lemmy.world⁩

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?

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givesomefucks@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
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.

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- DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Not only this, but they all sit on each other’s boards. There’s essentially one big mega corporation:
  
  Welcome to the Machine
  
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  - MNByChoice@midwest.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    That is really interesting.
    
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- sturger@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Excellent point. Modern CEOs are just the face of the marketing org. Maybe always have been.
  
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themeatbridge@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
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.

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chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
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.

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- Paradachshund@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  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.
  
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  - No1@aussie.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    The number of companies that wilfully ignored disastrous effects of outsourcing projects doesn’t fill me with hope…
    
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- sturger@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Agreed. I have to keep reminding myself that CEOs should really be CLO (Chief Lying Officers). Their job is to lie convincingly.
  
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  - grrgyle@slrpnk.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    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.
    
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- TimewornTraveler@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  love how everyone who mentions that fucking study has to link the Wikipedia article for it.
  
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  - chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I didn’t say anything about low intelligence. That’s your uncharitable reading of my claim.
    
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- scala@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  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.
  
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rhel@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
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… 🤔

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- Echolynx@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  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.
  
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  - grrgyle@slrpnk.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    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.
    
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- Patches@ttrpg.network ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  You’re talking about next quarter problems. Those aren’t mine. I will be gone by then
  
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- discosnails@lemmy.wtf ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Add UBI, boom communism.
  
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  - pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Nah. We would have to add patriot dollars that can be spent on freedom necessities, instead. We don’t tolerate communism.
    
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Sunsofold@lemmings.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Image

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kn0wmad1c@programming.dev ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Ironically, the job AI is most suited to replace is the CEO

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- Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  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.
  
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  - yermaw@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    In. New logo. Fire 30% of the workforce. Out.
    
    You are now a fully trained management consultant.
    
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Honytawk@feddit.nl ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
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.

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- _AutumnMoon_@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Just use a bird like Mr. Burns did
  
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- sturger@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  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.
  
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  - grrgyle@slrpnk.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    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.
    
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Kolanaki@pawb.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
CEOs could also be replaced by AI. And it would be hilarious.

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- DivineDev@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Would be funny if they notice a correlation between employee wages and employee happiness and performance.
  
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  - DrFistington@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Wait, this model is paying based off inflation regular wage adjustments, fair market value, experience, AND overall contribution to the company?!?! How are we going to skim and grift when the employees are well paid?!
    
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  - yermaw@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Image
    
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- halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Potentially more effective overall given how so many CEO decisions seem to result in terrible outcomes because they don’t actually understand their product. Usually because they were hired into the company and industry, and have no actual experience with their product or how the company works.
  
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  - 4am@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I doubt that an LLM would do very well, but other forms of ML (like a model trained to work in business rules and economic outcomes rather than stringing words together) could probably be used. Hell, they probably won’t need to use the planet-destroying mega data canters to do it; some very effective specialized ML models can be run on a Raspberry Pi.
    
    The biggest problem with AI is they’re convincing people they can think and replace workers by using extremely large language models trained on stolen works provided as cloud services asking for exorbitant subscription fees.
    
    In other words, tech bros figured out how to take something useful and make a grift out of it, because you can get rich by gatekeeping something of value. Why do you think they went so far as to threaten to ban DeepSeek when a free model that can run on a desktop PC from a foreign “adversary” appeared? They all shit their collective pants because the jig was up.
    
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- NONE_dc@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I’m going to die laughing the day investors tell Satya Nadella that they don’t need him anymore and that the AI is going to make the administrative decisions.
  
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  - pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    There is a pretty good chance that Satya goes first.
    
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- jjjalljs@ttrpg.network ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Most CEOs ive worked with are largely driven by emotion. If the LLM is using data to drive its decisions, it will probably do better.
  
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jj4211@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
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.

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SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
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.

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- DigitalAudio@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  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.
  
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  - grrgyle@slrpnk.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    We should’ve had that 50 years ago as an “automation tax” and 100 years ago as a “machine tax.”
    
    All this tooling is just dead labour value that is used (by workers) to extract more and more value from workers and nature. We’ve been being robbed for hundreds of years.
    
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Sanctus@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Is that happening this quarter or next? If not, its too far away to think about for them.

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- pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Right. All this consideration of medium-term consequences for decisions is why Lemmy isn’t ready to build a CEO LLM, yet.
  
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rumba@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Because they’re not just CEOs, they’re extremely wealthy CEOs with portfolios with deep investments in AI.

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hypnicjerk@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
AI can’t say ‘i do not recall’ for 6 hours straight under subpoena

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- possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  The problem is that AI has safety and ethical guard rails which makes it completely unsuitable for the corporate world.
  
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  - slazer2au@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Do the really have them though?
    
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n3m37h@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Ai dOeSnT hAvE tHe CoNnEcTiOnS ThAt MaKeS a GrEaT CEO

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- halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  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.
  
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- sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Feed it the CEO’s contact list and email history.
  
  Zoom has literally been pushing this, just feed your whole work text and email history and contact list, generate an AI version of ‘you’, then send that AI avatar to write messages and ‘have meetings’ with other AI avatar of other people…
  
  …and then send you, actual you, summaries of what was ‘discussed’ in these meetingd.
  
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haloduder@thelemmy.club ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
They’re talking about replacing all their workers.

The owners will still be ghouls.

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slazer2au@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Because current ‘ai’ can’t even run a vending machine business

www.anthropic.com/research/project-vend-1

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- Rivalarrival@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  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.
  
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count_dongulus@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
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.

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- sturger@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  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.
  
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grrgyle@slrpnk.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Because it’s not about productivity. It’s about separating people into owners and toilers.

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- sturger@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I also have to keep remembering what someone else online said, “They’re no longer selling their product. They’re selling their stocks.”
  
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douz0a0bouz@midwest.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Who do you think is telling the CEO’s to go full steam ahead on ai? The company I work for openly mocked ai…and then the stock price dropped. The investors said it was because they weren’t investing in ai. Even CEO’s, overpaid clowns though they may be, report to wall st.

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RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
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.

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- haloduder@thelemmy.club ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  If AI shows that the business will be more profitable without a human CEO, the owners will literally just ignore it.
  
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  - grrgyle@slrpnk.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Exactly. I’m sure countless accountants have pointed to that line item before and somehow we still have a CEOs.
    
    People who are so wowed by the incredible generative output of LLMs and can’t wait for them to fix things need to realise this technology is not for them.
    
    Like all nee tech it may cause a slight shakeup in the beginning allowing for a little upward mobility, but eventually big business folds around it until it only works for the owners.
    
    We’ll all just be working more for less, unless something actually changes.
    
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  - plyth@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    
    human CEO, the owners
    
    They are not the same, even in most startups. Bezos and Zuckerberg are an exception. CEOs would be replaced first if possible.
    
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Kurious84@lemmings.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
CEOs are the easiest to replace with ai. And all you need to do is have it commit sexual harassment every once in an awhile and it will be a perfect replacement.

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- Alaik@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Hey thats not true. You’d also have to feed them a prompt about how they can space out enacting a fucking idiotic idea over 6 meetings.
  
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  - rozodru@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Claude can already do that.
    
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SkyNTP@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
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.

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possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
You hit the nail on the head

I think middle managers are way more at risk

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- Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  This. Anyone who is part of the PowerPoint filter for the board is at risk.
  
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TimewornTraveler@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
just because no one needs billionaires doesn’t mean we will stop having them

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Treczoks@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
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.

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- Niiru@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  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.
  
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  - Treczoks@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    So exchanging a short-sighted CEO with an error-prone, hallucinating AI is a good thing?
    
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PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
It’s a race to the bottom.

It doesn’t matter if they think they’ll be replaced or not, they feel like if they don’t do it then they can’t compete and they’ll be out of the job even sooner.

Doesn’t matter if their belief is well founded.

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rozodru@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Read “The Big Short”. Wallstreet doesn’t need CEOs.

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phoenixz@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Because they’re mostly brain-dead idiots

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HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
ai can’t make tamales. beat that mr tech

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vane@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Because tech bros need more tech bros to laugh from us struggling with more and more meaningless tasks.

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