"Introducing the world's first Chief Executive Replacement Engine."
  • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    2 hours ago

    threatens

    But the owners of the website have no control over the administration of business infrastructure.

    Like, its all very tongue-and-cheek, but it mostly illustrates that our economic model isn’t based on “efficiency” or “meritocracy”. The folks calling the shots have their positions by way of inheritance, influence peddling, and state-sanctioned violence.

  • darthelmet@lemmy.worldEnglish
    18·
    6 hours ago

    This seems over engineered. I’m pretty sure a simple program that just replies “yeah sure” to anyone from the right department asking about something would outperform most CEOs.

    • xthexder@l.sw0.comEnglish
      9·
      1 hour ago

      The classic…

      Middle-manager: We have 3 options, but only enough resources to finish 1, which one should we prioritize?

      CEO: These are all great! I look forward to seeing the final version of all 3 next week.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
      8·
      2 hours ago

      The primary role of the CEO is to solicit cheap lending from banks. A simple program can’t do that. You need a real human being at the business with another real human being who was friends with that first human being in college and who now works as a broker at a big financial institution to stamp the loan.

      This is every billionaire’s path to power. Not via what they know but who they know.

  • ViatorOmnium@piefed.socialEnglish
    121·
    10 hours ago

    I don’t know why this needs to be a joke. Assuming the rest of the company is minimally competent and the middle managers can write clear executive documents an LLM will probably beat the average CEO just by virtue of not having moods. The only downside is that LLMs can’t do in person “social networking” yet.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        2 hours ago

        I’ve seen from personal experience that the only thing worse than bad middle management is no middle management.

        Getting called all the way up to the VPs office to try and explain some systems architecture to a guy who only knows how to say “But why doesn’t it work?!” at you over and over again is… not fun.

        • NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zipEnglish
          1·
          1 hour ago

          Fire them too.

          Or as the premise is: have the AI tell the VP. That’s who gets to write those documents now.

    • Septimaeus@infosec.pubEnglish
      33·
      5 hours ago

      All true. To your question, however: until software can be named as a legal fiduciary, CEOs can only be functionally replaced. That is, a real person who can be summoned by a court has to take responsibility for whatever shit the LLM gets the company into.

      E: way more replies than I’m used to, most re: same issue, so I’m clarifying here.

      Preface: totally not my area, IANAL.

      To clarify, I specifically meant CEOs can be named in a lawsuit by the shareholders for failure in fiduciary capacity. I didn’t mean a summons to answer for the sins of the corporation. TLDR: math models can’t be sued.

      (But if I’m wrong I’m wrong.)

      • Master167@lemmy.worldEnglish
        6·
        7 hours ago

        That would be the Board of directors for the company since they select the CEO or virtual equivalent. But current laws don’t support bringing anything against a CEO for a company’s wrongdoing. Even less for the board of directors.

      • ViatorOmnium@piefed.socialEnglish
        21·
        10 hours ago

        The middle managers can take turns as the Straw CEO for legal purposes. Or maybe someone can provide Straw CEO as a Service while living somewhere with few extradition treaties.

        • Mouselemming@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          3·
          7 hours ago

          Rotate it as an “on call” role monthly among all employees. If called upon to act, the person receives CEO-level salary for the necessary hours. And they’re in the running for an end-of-year bonus, to be voted on by all employees depending on the results of their actions in that role. (Splitting it between equally-valuable Acting CEOs is permissable.)

      • SwingingTheLamp@piefed.zipEnglish
        6·
        8 hours ago

        Well, not quite. The corporation is a distinct legal entity, and is served a summons per se. For practical purposes of actually delivering the papers to a person, the corporation must have a designated representative. This may be anybody, and there are businesses that specialize in serving as the designated representative for perhaps hundreds of corporations. (Especially those that exist only as legal entities.) I know of one nearby me that’s basically just a mailbox, even though it’s listed as the address for many, many corporations.

        The whole purpose of a corporate entity, as a legal concept, is to shield the directors, and officers, from personal liability. Unless personally named in a suit, a CEO almost never shows up in court. That’s a job for an attorney.

      • ApeNo1@lemmy.worldEnglish
        6·
        9 hours ago

        I believe the corporation itself is treated as a distinct legal entity for litigation purposes and shields officers of the company unless there are specific circumstances around any individual. I don’t think there is a legal requirement for a corporation to have a CEO. I think this just further confirms the idea of the CEO “role” being fully automated to be more than viable and a genuine costs savings. Much lower risk than relying on AI to replace skilled technical functions.

        Someone with more corporate legal knowledge could provide further insight.

        • thanksforallthefish@literature.cafeEnglish
          1·
          7 hours ago

          It depends on the country and the documents used to create the company.

          US, UK, Australia & NZ (and probably Canada but I don’t know) have fundamentally the same (not identical but pretty close) corporate governance laws.

          Yes a corporation is a separate legal entity; that was established in case law back in the 19thC in the UK (Salomon V Salomon), it does not however means that individuals are always protected, you can “lift the corporate veil” in specific circumstances (negligence fraud etc). IOW a corporation can be sued but sometimes the individuals inside the corporation can also be sued

          I’m not aware of any laws in the above countries that require the presence of an explicitly named CEO role, however all the standard laws require governance of the organisation through the directors and via directors & shareholders resolutions. An individual company can specify a structure in the documents used to create it (variously called things like a constitution or memorandum and articles of association depending your country/state) mandating that certain roles need to exist within the coy but that is optional and not standard.

          To address your actual point as opposed to the law, the CEO is an operational decision making functional role. If someone is making strategic decisions whether their title is Managing Director, CEO or Chief Stupidity Officer it doesn’t matter, it’s a functional role not a legal one. The legal buck stops with the directors regardless of who or what is making decisions for the company, however if there is a live person in the CEO role they can be sued on the “lift corporate veil” bases (fraud negligence malfeasance etc). If the CEO has acted within their bounds and in good faith then any issues sit with the directors (note I’m trying to condense a massive list of if ands and buts into a pithy sentence, there’s a zillion exceptions but that’s the broad rule).

          So yes, the board could legally put an AI in place and direct it to run the company. If it makes bad or illegal decisions that liability rests with the directors.

          If the AI oversteps its delegated authority is possibly the one area where it could get legally interesting. I would expect the directors to be held liable for any decision the AI made even if it executed something it was explicitly told not to as it is reasonably foreseeable (by anyone with a functioning brain cell anyway) that that could happen and oversight is needed. I could also see a board dragging the AI provider to court to try and hold them as being accountable (don’t think they’d win, but I can see there being a lawsuit)

          EDIT some grammar/punctuation and a couple of wording tweaks for readability

      • Ŝan • 𐑖ƨɤ@piefed.zipEnglish
        23·
        8 hours ago

        Companies are legally people, þanks to Citizens United. Have þe AI defend itself in court for testimony, but punish þe company.

      • Xaphanos@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        2 hours ago

        Sure

        A tech journalist sets up a company of all AI agents. CFO, CTO, HR, Sales, etc. He is following the capabilities advertised by all of the various vendors. He makes significant progress. He demonstrates that is is indeed possible. And some really absurd things happen along the way. Like the vendor advertising that agents are perfectly capable of this hanging up on one of them in disgust.