4 ms·

I am sympathetic to your point, but reducing a complex social exchange like that down to 'writing emails' is wildly underestimating the problem. In any negotiat

I am sympathetic to your point, but reducing a complex social exchange like that down to 'writing emails' is wildly underestimating the problem. In any negotiation, it's essential to have an internal model of the other party. If you can't predict reactions you don't know which actions to take. I am not at all convinced any modern AI would be up to that task. Once one exists that is I think we stop being in charge of our little corner of the galaxy.

krapp 10mo ago
Artists, musicians, scientists, lawyers and programmers have all argued that the irreducible complexity of their jobs makes automation by AI impossible and all have been proven wrong to some degree. I see no reason why CEOs should be the exception. Although I think it's more likely that we're going to enter an era of fully autonomous corporations, and the position of "CEO" will simply no longer exist except as a machine-to-machine protocol.
- unethical_ban 10mo ago
  I feel like the people who can't comprehend the difficulties of an AI CEO are people who have never been in business sales or high level strategy and negotiating. You can't think of a single difference in the nature of the job of artist/musician vs. lawyer vs. business executive?
  - hackyhacky 10mo ago
    You sound like a CEO desperately trying not to get fired. Everyone is indispensable until they aren't.
    - habinero 10mo ago
      This whole thread is delightful. Well done.
    - unethical_ban 10mo ago
      Alas, this doesn't answer the question I posed. CEOs are a different class of worker, with a different set of customers, a smaller pool of workers. They operate with a different set of rules than music creation or coding, and they sit at the top of the economy. They will use AI as a tool. Someone will sit at the top of a company. What would you call them?
  - blargey 10mo ago
    > I feel like the people who can't comprehend the difficulties of an AI <thing doer> are people who have never <tried to do that thing really well>. That applies to every call to replace jobs with current-gen AI. But I can't think of a difference between CEOs and other professions that works out in favor of keeping the CEOs over the rest.
  - krapp 10mo ago
    >You can't think of a single difference in the nature of the job of artist/musician vs. lawyer vs. business executive? I can think of plenty, but none that matter. As the AI stans say, there is nothing special about being human. What is a "CEO?" Just a closed system of inputs and outputs, stimulus and response, encased in wetware. A physical system that like all physical systems can be automated and will be automated in time.
    - unethical_ban 10mo ago
      My assertion is that it's a small club of incredibly powerful people operating in a system of very human rules - not well defined structures like programming, or to a lesser extent, law. The market they serve is themselves and powerful shareholders. They don't serve finicky consumers that have dozens of low-friction alternatives, like they do in AI slop Youtube videos, or logo generation for their new business. A human at some point is at the top of the pyramid. Will CEOs be finding the best way to use AI to serve their agenda? They'd be foolish not to. But if you "replace the CEO", then the person below that is effectively the CEO.
- idiotsecant 10mo ago
  They've been proven wrong? I'm not sure I've seen an LLM that does anything beyond the most basic rote boilerplate for any of these. I don't think any of these professions have been replaced at all?
- whateverboat 10mo ago
  The one big reason why CEOs exist is trust. Trust from the shareholders that someone at the company is trying to achieve gains for them. Trust from vendors/customers that someone at the company is trying to make a good product. Trust from the employees that someone is trying to bring in the money to the company (even if it doesn't come to them eventually). And that trust can only be a person who is innately human, because the AI will make decisions which are holistically good and not specifically directed towards the above goals. And if some of the above goals are in conflict, then the CEO will make decisions which benefit the more powerful group because of an innately uncontrollable reward function, which is not true of AI by design.
  - hackyhacky 10mo ago
    > The one big reason why CEOs exist is trust. This sounds a lot like the specious argument that only humans can create "art", despite copious evidence to the contrary. You know what builds trust? A history of positive results. If AIs perform well in a certain task, then people will trust them to complete it. > Trust from vendors/customers that someone at the company is trying to make a good product. I can assure you that I, as a consumer, have absolutely no truth in any CEO that they are trying to making a good product. Their job is to make money, and making a good product is merely a potential side-effect.

krapp 10mo ago

Artists, musicians, scientists, lawyers and programmers have all argued that the irreducible complexity of their jobs makes automation by AI impossible and all have been proven wrong to some degree. I see no reason why CEOs should be the exception. Although I think it's more likely that we're going to enter an era of fully autonomous corporations, and the position of "CEO" will simply no longer exist except as a machine-to-machine protocol.

unethical_ban 10mo ago
I feel like the people who can't comprehend the difficulties of an AI CEO are people who have never been in business sales or high level strategy and negotiating. You can't think of a single difference in the nature of the job of artist/musician vs. lawyer vs. business executive?
- hackyhacky 10mo ago
  You sound like a CEO desperately trying not to get fired. Everyone is indispensable until they aren't.
  - habinero 10mo ago
    This whole thread is delightful. Well done.
  - unethical_ban 10mo ago
    Alas, this doesn't answer the question I posed. CEOs are a different class of worker, with a different set of customers, a smaller pool of workers. They operate with a different set of rules than music creation or coding, and they sit at the top of the economy. They will use AI as a tool. Someone will sit at the top of a company. What would you call them?
- blargey 10mo ago
  > I feel like the people who can't comprehend the difficulties of an AI <thing doer> are people who have never <tried to do that thing really well>. That applies to every call to replace jobs with current-gen AI. But I can't think of a difference between CEOs and other professions that works out in favor of keeping the CEOs over the rest.
- krapp 10mo ago
  >You can't think of a single difference in the nature of the job of artist/musician vs. lawyer vs. business executive? I can think of plenty, but none that matter. As the AI stans say, there is nothing special about being human. What is a "CEO?" Just a closed system of inputs and outputs, stimulus and response, encased in wetware. A physical system that like all physical systems can be automated and will be automated in time.
  - unethical_ban 10mo ago
    My assertion is that it's a small club of incredibly powerful people operating in a system of very human rules - not well defined structures like programming, or to a lesser extent, law. The market they serve is themselves and powerful shareholders. They don't serve finicky consumers that have dozens of low-friction alternatives, like they do in AI slop Youtube videos, or logo generation for their new business. A human at some point is at the top of the pyramid. Will CEOs be finding the best way to use AI to serve their agenda? They'd be foolish not to. But if you "replace the CEO", then the person below that is effectively the CEO.
idiotsecant 10mo ago
They've been proven wrong? I'm not sure I've seen an LLM that does anything beyond the most basic rote boilerplate for any of these. I don't think any of these professions have been replaced at all?
whateverboat 10mo ago
The one big reason why CEOs exist is trust. Trust from the shareholders that someone at the company is trying to achieve gains for them. Trust from vendors/customers that someone at the company is trying to make a good product. Trust from the employees that someone is trying to bring in the money to the company (even if it doesn't come to them eventually). And that trust can only be a person who is innately human, because the AI will make decisions which are holistically good and not specifically directed towards the above goals. And if some of the above goals are in conflict, then the CEO will make decisions which benefit the more powerful group because of an innately uncontrollable reward function, which is not true of AI by design.
- hackyhacky 10mo ago
  > The one big reason why CEOs exist is trust. This sounds a lot like the specious argument that only humans can create "art", despite copious evidence to the contrary. You know what builds trust? A history of positive results. If AIs perform well in a certain task, then people will trust them to complete it. > Trust from vendors/customers that someone at the company is trying to make a good product. I can assure you that I, as a consumer, have absolutely no truth in any CEO that they are trying to making a good product. Their job is to make money, and making a good product is merely a potential side-effect.