AI across the C-suite — Artificial intelligence will remove the human touch from many significant roles but can it replace the hands that steer the ship?
7 MIN. READ
Artificial intelligence will be the defining disruption of our age. In a time characterized by so many seismic shifts, this one is the very apex.
What executive wouldn’t be a little excited by the potential of that?
Less than a year since ChatGPT launched in public beta, it’s already obvious that generative AI — LLMs (Large Language Models) in particular — will have a monumental effect on the future of work. The boon to productivity is undeniable and the limits of its applications seem … well … limitless.
But along with the limitless possibilities is the possibility that this technology may take more from us than we get back in return. AI’s endless potential also holds the potential for things to end — even for those of us who are leading the way.
What seems inconceivable today — the supplanting of executive leaders by smart tech — is already foreshadowed in the fates of those a few rungs down the ladder from us, and a few rungs down the ladder from them, and so on, and so on.
We’re protected now. But that could change as quickly as the recommendation engine on TikTok. What we do now might well define the terms of our own futures in this brave new world.
If we aren’t able to protect and steward our own people through these uncertain times, we could soon find ourselves with no one left to lead. And with no person left to lead, what need is there for a leader?
Do the chief executives of an automated organization need to be human?
Is AI coming for the C-suite?
READ ‘LEANING INTO AN EARLY SUCCESSION PLAN — Why great executive leaders are always looking for the best person to replace them’
For now, these systems are beneficial tools, supplementing human efforts. But they learn quickly and they are infinitely replicable. Like weavers watching a mechanical loom steam away, programmers are witnessing the dawn of their eventual sunsetting. In January and February 2023 alone, there were 120,000 tech layoffs, with Alphabet accounting for 10% of those lost jobs. Other roles will likely fall to similar fates. Data scientists, systems engineers, traders (even quants), designers, teachers — in fact, any occupation based around information and the generation of something from that information — will be at risk of being sidelined or devalued in this new world. The tech industry has shed nearly half a million workers over the past year and a half, the most since the dot-com crash two decades ago. As deployable AI is ramped up to cover operational shortfalls, how many of those workers will be able to find new placements? We have only an inkling of the change and upheaval that is coming for us. That we know it’s coming doesn’t seem to be much of a mitigating factor. In fact the opposite seems to be true. We seem to be in a race to embrace it.
THE AI GENIE IS OUT OF THE BOTTLE — EMBRACING AI
Already, Alphabet, Meta and Microsoft (through its investment in OpenAI) are deploying incredibly advanced AI across their enterprise offerings. Meanwhile, millions of smaller organizations are sprouting up to launch all manner of AI-governed applications, some piggybacking on Big Tech APIs and some using their own proprietary LLMs. It’s a generative AI gold rush. Though some have framed it as more of a weapons race. For all the benefits offered by this new technology — all the as-yet-unrealized applications — the risks are considerable. Ignoring for now the doomerism coming from a not-inconsequential swath of the machine-learning community, let’s acknowledge that people will be hurt by these developments. Many occupations we used to consider the exclusive domain of highly trained human practitioners are already showing signs of AI attrition. Programmers — that most highly paid, unassailable, superclass of skilled workers — are presiding over the birth of systems that will soon be able to outperform and outpace them.READ ‘LEANING INTO AN EARLY SUCCESSION PLAN — Why great executive leaders are always looking for the best person to replace them’
For now, these systems are beneficial tools, supplementing human efforts. But they learn quickly and they are infinitely replicable. Like weavers watching a mechanical loom steam away, programmers are witnessing the dawn of their eventual sunsetting. In January and February 2023 alone, there were 120,000 tech layoffs, with Alphabet accounting for 10% of those lost jobs. Other roles will likely fall to similar fates. Data scientists, systems engineers, traders (even quants), designers, teachers — in fact, any occupation based around information and the generation of something from that information — will be at risk of being sidelined or devalued in this new world. The tech industry has shed nearly half a million workers over the past year and a half, the most since the dot-com crash two decades ago. As deployable AI is ramped up to cover operational shortfalls, how many of those workers will be able to find new placements? We have only an inkling of the change and upheaval that is coming for us. That we know it’s coming doesn’t seem to be much of a mitigating factor. In fact the opposite seems to be true. We seem to be in a race to embrace it.