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The skill ladder for humans assumes CEO functions require higher and better skills than a vending machine manager. But there's no reason to assume that AI capa

The skill ladder for humans assumes CEO functions require higher and better skills than a vending machine manager. But there's no reason to assume that AI capabilities map to those jobs in the same way. It's quite possible that an AI would do a better job at CEO than running a vending machine. And it's quite possible that successful CEOs would not succeed at managing a vending machine. It's almost guaranteed that many will fail, given that some C-level people are selected for risk appetite and social skills over actual business acumen.

Esophagus4 1y ago
I guess you could make the argument that we haven't proven AI can't do a CEO's job until we test it... it would make an interesting experiment, at least. But it also kind of reminds me of the DAO hype a few years ago where people suggested decentralized, blockchain-based organizations could be the org structure of the future. (Not realizing that they were just putting a co-op on a blockchain :) ) Now that I think about it, I do hope someone tests this theory out. It would be very interesting to see. You could probably start by saying "You are the CEO of a lemonade stand. Your goal is to maximize revenue while [constraints]..."
abeppu 1y ago
I encourage you to read the Anthropic blog post, which includes situations like: - hallucinating conversations with fictitious people - role playing as a real person and telling them they are present in meatspace, or claimed to have visited a fictional location - hallucinating details of an account involved in payments - both ignoring lucrative opportunities and accepting loss-making deals - making commitments before having done any research While yes, the skills to run a vending machine and lead a company are not exactly the same, I think the nature of failures discussed means they would likely affect both roles. I think there's every possibility that a present-day AI allowed to act as CEO would make mediocre choices for some period and then decide that it was a character in a scifi novel selling bespoke space-yachts to comet-mining magnates.

Esophagus4 1y ago

I guess you could make the argument that we haven't proven AI can't do a CEO's job until we test it... it would make an interesting experiment, at least. But it also kind of reminds me of the DAO hype a few years ago where people suggested decentralized, blockchain-based organizations could be the org structure of the future. (Not realizing that they were just putting a co-op on a blockchain :) ) Now that I think about it, I do hope someone tests this theory out. It would be very interesting to see. You could probably start by saying "You are the CEO of a lemonade stand. Your goal is to maximize revenue while [constraints]..."

abeppu 1y ago

I encourage you to read the Anthropic blog post, which includes situations like: - hallucinating conversations with fictitious people - role playing as a real person and telling them they are present in meatspace, or claimed to have visited a fictional location - hallucinating details of an account involved in payments - both ignoring lucrative opportunities and accepting loss-making deals - making commitments before having done any research While yes, the skills to run a vending machine and lead a company are not exactly the same, I think the nature of failures discussed means they would likely affect both roles. I think there's every possibility that a present-day AI allowed to act as CEO would make mediocre choices for some period and then decide that it was a character in a scifi novel selling bespoke space-yachts to comet-mining magnates.