Should We Automate the CEO? | Hacker News Reader

Should We Automate the CEO?

thehustle.co

34 pointssahin12 comments

What a lovely idea, using AI to automate the rich. It should all be free and open source as well.

Instead of Tim Cook revealing the next iPhone, let's create an AI generated hologram of Steve Jobs to reveal the next iPhone.

CEOs usually get rich, especially tech CEOs or CEOs of major companies in the US. But they're still employees who work for a living. The really rich people are still the investors -- and there's no automating away their work, since they earn money simply through what they own, not what they do.

Automating the CEO is probably an excellent way to make the owner class even richer. Which means it will probably happen.

My instinct was to agree but I'm not sure

The CEO is the host for the investor parasite - which is why the board chooses the CEO who cares the most about investors

Removing this conduit would either:

1. Require the board to actually become the operators they all claim they are (but never prove because "well that's not my job, but my advice should be heeded like god")

2. The Board would invent a new way to monitor productivity but it would be via the more distributed management that hasn't been fully taken over by the parasite

3. Workers organize their own management

Seems like all the options are an improvement over the current state of affairs

This turns upside down the standard role of automation in control systems. E.g. the humans sets the temperature on the thermostat controller, or the pilot sets the parameters on the autopilot, but the plane is still under control of the pilot. Automated controllers don’t have goals that aren’t set by controllers above them in the hierarchy. In my opinion it’s definitionally impossible for automation to be the chief executive since there must be someone above setting the goals.

Maximise returns on investment?

And blame the programmers when things go south

We shouldn’t automate anything as long as the general public, or at least the people in charge don’t understand how tech works and “algorithms”

You don't even need AI to get rid of CEOs

No, but without a CEO there's no one to hold the bag if everything goes to hell.

You can't say "I was just following orders" if there's nobody to issue the orders.

AI will randomly fire people and take all the responsibility. We are already there.

With a ROI of eleventy bazillion percent per annum, it seems like a no-brainer.

Yes.

Sure, let's automate the CEO. Right after we automate middle management, police, state legislatures, and Congress.

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