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If I were on the Salesforce BoD I wouldn't be impressed. Let's see Benioff put his money where his mouth is, replace some C-suite seats with AI agents. Those a

If I were on the Salesforce BoD I wouldn't be impressed. Let's see Benioff put his money where his mouth is, replace some C-suite seats with AI agents. Those are the really expensive salaries, and if AI is as smart as he claims it's downright reckless and negligent not to do this.

dasil003 2y ago
The point of this announcement is to boost sales, not to save costs. He's selling AI hype. The only thing that matters if customers are buying the hype, not the reality of AI's limitations which I'm sure the board is well aware of.
- mullingitover 2y ago
  > He's selling AI hype AI hype is exactly what I'm talking about. I imagine if you demonstrate that you can have AI agents as viciously competitive COOs, CFOs, and CTOs, who never need time off, never sleep, it would be something that would set Wall Street on fire.
  - bee_rider 2y ago
    That seems like it might actually work though. A company as a something like a collection of guilds coordinated by AI facilitators would be really fascinating.
    - mullingitover 2y ago
      From there it only follows: (camera pans to board of directors) "What would you say… ya' do here?" We can have a funding agent provision an agent-based board as well. What's the point of a board that can't react to real-time market information 24x7x365?
      - bee_rider 2y ago
        I guess an LLM probably can legally own things or be legally responsible for decisions. We’ll need one person at the top as a money-holder/sin-eater.
        angoragoats 2y ago
        The humans who lead companies are rarely held personally responsible (in a legal sense) for decisions they make anyway, so having LLMs at the helm wouldn’t really be that much of a change.
        hirvi74 2y ago
        We can classify LLM's as 'people' like we do for corporations in the US. (sarcasm)
  - hirvi74 2y ago
    I'm surprised this has caught on yet... Well, not really I suppose -- for obvious power-tripping reasons. However, I could see the issue of AI 'hallucinations' being a non-issue in this domain because many in C-Suite positions have been 'hallucinating' for decades.
  - dasil003 2y ago
    You're talking past my point. I understand there's cynicism at multiple levels. The cynicism about AI's capabilities is well understood, we're at the peak of the hype cycle. People are selling AI across the board, but the reality will fall short of the sales pitch in innumerable ways across the board whether that be programmer productivity or anything else. Then there's the meta cynicism about the sales pitches of AIs, reinforced my CEOs speaking to wall street about how AI will enable staff reductions. The rank and file is understandbly very angry about this, coupled with the understanding by technical folks that AI is far from being able to replace the function of actual deep-thinking humans. This is when the temptation to minimize the value of executives and "call their bluff" comes in. But here is where you need a dose of reality. Executives aren't stupid as you think, they don't get paid what they do for no reason, and despite the bad and anti-humanitarian decisions they make in the name of shareholder, they actually can't be replaced by AI. Both executives and boards understand this and so it's not really a topic of discussion. You are free to disagree with this of course, but at some point its just toothless wishful thinking.
    - mullingitover 2y ago
      > Executives aren't stupid as you think, they don't get paid what they do for no reason I agree, but I think the reason they get paid what they do isn't because they're highly skilled (not to say they don't have skills, but those skills are mostly good ol' boys networking and the ability to do basic analysis), but rather because they're part of an insular class that protects its own. However, they're expensive and inefficient, and if we're going to practice honest capitalism then the first group to rip that bandaid off and automate away their (mostly) dead weight actually will be competitively superior to the backwards holdouts, and they will proceed to dominate the market. This is of course if we're practicing actual capitalism and not a dressed-up form of neo-feudalism. > but the reality will fall short of the sales pitch in innumerable ways across the board whether that be programmer productivity or anything else Remains to be seen. We are with AI where the web was in 1996, when plenty of trusted thought leaders were sagely telling us that the web was just a place for glorified brochures.
      - noisy_boy 2y ago
koolba 2y ago
> Let's see Benioff put his money where his mouth is, replace some C-suite seats with AI agents. How can you replace a job that involves stone cold deterministic thinking and copying the behavior of your peers after a 3-6 month review with a lifeless machine?
brandon272 2y ago
That is a point that seems to get lost in the hype (or fear) of AI replacing software engineers. If we take at face value that AI can “replace” a software engineer, it can most certainly replace most of the managers and executives above that role.
- hatefulmoron 2y ago
  Right. When many jobs could be reduced to interacting with a keyboard and a camera/microphone connected to a computer, I would suggest that software engineers are not at the front of the queue to be automated away. In the AI vision we're definitely there, but we have lots of company.
  - mullingitover 2y ago
    The thing that will create the real-life Butlerian Jihad against AI agents will be when they come for the lawyers' jobs.
- gregw2 2y ago
  I might take it one step further... AI might /better/ at mimicking the lying and hallucinations of management than at mimicking engineering.
- Jcampuzano2 2y ago
  I'll do you better. AI could largely already fill the role and fulfill all responsibilities at expected level of any C suite or management only position better right now than it could a software or operational position. Their position is fundamentally easier to do for an AI compared to operational and labor roles. They are given data and output a decision or course of action. But since they largely aren't the ones implementing said action plan it's perfectly suitable for an AI. C suites and execs are going to do all they can to ever avoid mentioning this though.
geodel 2y ago
For better or worse it is total dollars for IT/Software salaries vs total dollars for exec salaries. And in this case software salaries is very large number that need to be cut.

dasil003 2y ago

The point of this announcement is to boost sales, not to save costs. He's selling AI hype. The only thing that matters if customers are buying the hype, not the reality of AI's limitations which I'm sure the board is well aware of.

mullingitover 2y ago
> He's selling AI hype AI hype is exactly what I'm talking about. I imagine if you demonstrate that you can have AI agents as viciously competitive COOs, CFOs, and CTOs, who never need time off, never sleep, it would be something that would set Wall Street on fire.
- bee_rider 2y ago
  That seems like it might actually work though. A company as a something like a collection of guilds coordinated by AI facilitators would be really fascinating.
  - mullingitover 2y ago
    From there it only follows: (camera pans to board of directors) "What would you say… ya' do here?" We can have a funding agent provision an agent-based board as well. What's the point of a board that can't react to real-time market information 24x7x365?
    - bee_rider 2y ago
      I guess an LLM probably can legally own things or be legally responsible for decisions. We’ll need one person at the top as a money-holder/sin-eater.
      - angoragoats 2y ago
        The humans who lead companies are rarely held personally responsible (in a legal sense) for decisions they make anyway, so having LLMs at the helm wouldn’t really be that much of a change.
      - hirvi74 2y ago
        We can classify LLM's as 'people' like we do for corporations in the US. (sarcasm)
- hirvi74 2y ago
  I'm surprised this has caught on yet... Well, not really I suppose -- for obvious power-tripping reasons. However, I could see the issue of AI 'hallucinations' being a non-issue in this domain because many in C-Suite positions have been 'hallucinating' for decades.
- dasil003 2y ago
  You're talking past my point. I understand there's cynicism at multiple levels. The cynicism about AI's capabilities is well understood, we're at the peak of the hype cycle. People are selling AI across the board, but the reality will fall short of the sales pitch in innumerable ways across the board whether that be programmer productivity or anything else. Then there's the meta cynicism about the sales pitches of AIs, reinforced my CEOs speaking to wall street about how AI will enable staff reductions. The rank and file is understandbly very angry about this, coupled with the understanding by technical folks that AI is far from being able to replace the function of actual deep-thinking humans. This is when the temptation to minimize the value of executives and "call their bluff" comes in. But here is where you need a dose of reality. Executives aren't stupid as you think, they don't get paid what they do for no reason, and despite the bad and anti-humanitarian decisions they make in the name of shareholder, they actually can't be replaced by AI. Both executives and boards understand this and so it's not really a topic of discussion. You are free to disagree with this of course, but at some point its just toothless wishful thinking.
  - mullingitover 2y ago
    > Executives aren't stupid as you think, they don't get paid what they do for no reason I agree, but I think the reason they get paid what they do isn't because they're highly skilled (not to say they don't have skills, but those skills are mostly good ol' boys networking and the ability to do basic analysis), but rather because they're part of an insular class that protects its own. However, they're expensive and inefficient, and if we're going to practice honest capitalism then the first group to rip that bandaid off and automate away their (mostly) dead weight actually will be competitively superior to the backwards holdouts, and they will proceed to dominate the market. This is of course if we're practicing actual capitalism and not a dressed-up form of neo-feudalism. > but the reality will fall short of the sales pitch in innumerable ways across the board whether that be programmer productivity or anything else Remains to be seen. We are with AI where the web was in 1996, when plenty of trusted thought leaders were sagely telling us that the web was just a place for glorified brochures.
    - noisy_boy 2y ago

koolba 2y ago

> Let's see Benioff put his money where his mouth is, replace some C-suite seats with AI agents. How can you replace a job that involves stone cold deterministic thinking and copying the behavior of your peers after a 3-6 month review with a lifeless machine?

brandon272 2y ago

That is a point that seems to get lost in the hype (or fear) of AI replacing software engineers. If we take at face value that AI can “replace” a software engineer, it can most certainly replace most of the managers and executives above that role.

hatefulmoron 2y ago
Right. When many jobs could be reduced to interacting with a keyboard and a camera/microphone connected to a computer, I would suggest that software engineers are not at the front of the queue to be automated away. In the AI vision we're definitely there, but we have lots of company.
- mullingitover 2y ago
  The thing that will create the real-life Butlerian Jihad against AI agents will be when they come for the lawyers' jobs.
gregw2 2y ago
I might take it one step further... AI might /better/ at mimicking the lying and hallucinations of management than at mimicking engineering.
Jcampuzano2 2y ago
I'll do you better. AI could largely already fill the role and fulfill all responsibilities at expected level of any C suite or management only position better right now than it could a software or operational position. Their position is fundamentally easier to do for an AI compared to operational and labor roles. They are given data and output a decision or course of action. But since they largely aren't the ones implementing said action plan it's perfectly suitable for an AI. C suites and execs are going to do all they can to ever avoid mentioning this though.

geodel 2y ago

For better or worse it is total dollars for IT/Software salaries vs total dollars for exec salaries. And in this case software salaries is very large number that need to be cut.