Could You Soon Be Reporting to an AI CEO?
Let's discuss the likelihood of AI transforming from your steady assistant to your emotionally-devoid boss.
Cheers to the start of a new year! This is my first post of 2025. Here’s to staying consistent 🍻
Would you take orders from an AI boss?
We already have AI penetrating all facets of the corporate world. The only logical next step is the very real possibility of AI meandering into the much-coveted C-suite and perhaps, finally into the ultimate leadership role of that of a CEO.
While the prospect of an AI CEO might seem improbable, and even laughable, right now, we already have several companies experimenting with AI in executive decision-making roles.
Let’s consider an example: as per a recent announcement by Panasonic, the firm analyzed data derived from the writings, speeches, and voice recordings of its late founder, Konosuke Matsushita, to create his AI clone.
Konosuke Matsushita died in 1989, and while I wonder if he would have been enthused about the prospect of being reincarnated in an artificial form, his digital presence is among us nonetheless.
Do such initiatives pose any kind of ethical dilemmas?
Absolutely.
Creating AI versions of deceased people raises questions about consent and identity theft.
Does anyone care?
It doesn’t seem so.
I do expect to see the digital reincarnation of many historical figures in our near future. Some of them might even be individuals we do not want coming back.
The terrifying possibilities of criminal masterminds and people who have instigated manslaughter at large in the past (you know who I’m talking about, plus all those whom we might not know of) have become very real today.
Of course, such digital rebirth is entirely dependent upon the data that is available (or acquirable through necessary means) for analysis.
However, I won’t go into more detail about the prospect of digital reincarnation at this time, as that is not what this newsletter is about. Fascinating subject though, isn’t it? Perhaps I’ll make it a special feature.
For now, let’s get back to the topic at hand.
While Panasonic is the first in line to clone one of its leaders, it certainly won’t be the last. When another company adopts this idea of transmigrating the soul from tissues and bones to chips and metal, I am certain they will broadcast it widely, and we’ll be here to read and discuss it.
However, that’s not all there is to the daring imposition of AI into executive leadership. Google, for one, has been using AI to generate more than 25% of its code. Another example would be the Indian finance-tech firm, PhonePe, which has made 60% of its customer-support personnel redundant in the last 5 years, replacing staff with AI-powered chatbots. Discussing how capable these AI-driven bots are at solving customer issues warrants an article of its own.
An endeavor for another time.
Now, all these are small, ignorable instances of AI’s venture into the highest bracket of an organization. What actually impresses and distresses at the same time is the appointment of an AI program named Tang Yu as the CEO of the Chinese firm NetDragon Websoft.
Never heard of them? I hadn’t either until I sat down to write this article.
NetDragon is a gaming company (why did I know it would be a gaming company before I even looked it up?) based in Fuzhou, China, that has been around since 1999. Shortly after the installation of Tang Yu as CEO, whose primary responsibility is to assist with the organization’s everyday running, the company’s stock prices shot up, launching it into the USD 1 billion valuation club.
We have another critical example of the appointment of Mika, the world’s first human-like AI robot CEO, by the Colombian rum brand Dictador in association with Hanson Robotics. Hanson is known for creating the famous AI robot, Sophia, of whom you must have heard.
Not only is it difficult to understand what exactly Mika’s purpose is, other than being a symbol of AI infiltration, but how this experiment will turn out is also yet to be seen.
Moreover, Mika tends to lag considerably while answering, not what you would expect from a CEO, symbolic or otherwise.
However, my beef is not with the AI program; in my opinion, AI is progressing as it should. The issue I have is with the people who think AI must percolate every possible domain in existence.
What I am failing to understand is the sense of urgency people have regarding the dispersion of AI. How exactly is having an AI CEO going to benefit anybody, especially given the nascent state of current AI? I am all ears to hear your thoughts on the topic.
I doubt that reporting to an AI CEO is going to make any employee happy; I certainly don’t see it having a positive impact on job satisfaction unless AI is replacing a purely awful boss (which it might in some cases?). The point is that I am divided, mostly tilting toward the opinion that this is a horrible idea.
For me, an AI program can replace the CEO’s assistant, not the CEO themself.
Sure, we have data that states that about 49% of a CEO’s work can be automated, but how generalizable is this data? Plus, what about the remaining 51%? Seems like a considerable chunk to me.
Of course, the advantages that an AI software brings to the table (the one around which the BoD sits, in this case) cannot be denied, and it would not be smart to undermine them either.
I, for one, would place my money on AI’s data-driven capabilities, its ability to brainstorm ideas, and getting that pesky first draft out of the way. However, we should not miss out on all the areas where AI falls short. At least it does for now.
To elucidate, remember the strawberry incident? Or the fact that Sophia, a creation of Hanson Robotics, proclaimed she would destroy humans? Or the fact that current generative AI models are not only prone to bouts of hallucinations and straying from tasks but also deception and manipulation.
Hence proved that AI is not without its faults. Consequently, it becomes pertinent to view the entire picture and not ignore the negatives by just focusing on the positives or vice versa.
Now, let’s talk science for a minute. A highly intellectually stimulating book by Antonio Aloisi and Valerio De Stefano called Your Boss is an Algorithm, published in 2022, goes into detail about all the ways AI is replacing our bosses in small but significant ways. For instance, the book talks about how companies like Uber and Lyft use algorithms to monitor the behavior of drivers, assign them tasks, manage their performance, and decide their compensation, all without human intervention.
Can you imagine why this would be problematic? The decision of an AI would be final, shifting responsibility from management to software, creating a highly unbalanced relationship.
Companies such as Amazon have faced an increasing number of lawsuits due to their rising use of algorithms to manage employees. I am talking specifically about the labor class in this instance, but entry-level corporate employees and associates are also subject to such artificial governance.
I have a personal example where a LinkedIn connection wanted to know if the company I worked at used TimeDoctor to track work hours of employees. Imagine my consternation when I discovered that TimeDoctor is a software that takes webcam shots in addition to screenshots to make sure you are actually working.
Horrifying!
And this is not the end of it. In fact, if you started to look into it, you would discover that we are closer to a workalypse than it seems.
However, I feel like I have made my point as to why appointing an AI program as the boss will not be a good idea. As such, I’ll rest my keyboard here.
What are your thoughts on the matter? Would you rather report to an AI boss? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!
Until next time,
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