Could Artificial Intelligence Eliminate Your Boss’s Boss’s Job?
That corner office might soon be occupied by a robot. TenorNews that is entertaining to read
Subscribe for free to get more stories like this directly to your inboxThere’s been a ton of hand-wringing lately about the potential of AI to replace millions of white-collar workers. But what about those higher up the corporate food chain?
Replacing CEOs
Although companies arguably need someone at the top who is responsible for making decisions that affect everybody else, these individuals are also ripe for scrutiny. They usually make exponentially more money than the average employee and, from the looks of it, they don’t seem to really do all that much actual work.
So some people are already arguing that replacing CEOs with a “chief robot officer,” for lack of a better term, is a better application for AI technology.
Journalist Hamilton Nolan recently explored this concept in a Substack article, determining that it should theoretically be easier for a machine learning program to replace the job of a CEO than just about any other position imaginable.
“If I were to imagine a job that was a perfect candidate for replacement by AI, it would be one that consists of measurable tasks that can be learned — allocation of capital, creation and execution of market strategy, selection of candidates for top roles,” he wrote.
Furthermore, CEOs cost companies “a s***load of money,” as he put it, so there’s clearly a financial incentive to assign those tasks to an unpaid robot.
The Buzzfeed model
You might have heard that Buzzfeed CEO Jonah Peretti envisions the site replacing “the majority of static content” with stuff written by AI instead of actual humans. You might think that would sound good to investors, but the company has lost about 90% of its value since Peretti took the helm.
So as he rakes in millions and eliminates the jobs of humble writers, it begs the question: Whose position is really most deserving of an AI replacement?