CEOs are hugely expensive. Why not automate them? – If a single role is as expensive as thousands of workers, it is surely the prime candidate for robot-induced redundancy. [5, 23]
https://www.newstatesman.com/business/companies/2023/05/ceos-salaries-expensive-automate-robots
![CEOs are hugely expensive. Why not automate them? - If a single role is as expensive as thousands of workers, it is surely the prime candidate for robot-induced redundancy. [5, 23]](https://www.byteseu.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/5k4hQtrDdiqecyVD8gUq40YEetfNVepEAfWmkSGBA-g-1536x1024.jpeg "CEOs are hugely expensive. Why not automate them? – If a single role is as expensive as thousands of workers, it is surely the prime candidate for robot-induced redundancy. [5, 23]")
31 Comments
AI cannot be a skapegoat for investors when they need one, they’d be stuck with the decisions they made for short term profits
CEOs need to remember as they replace our jobs with AI that they’re the next on the list.
Maybe we should just. . . not?
I mean, I’m all for a UBI, but if we build AI better than all humans, that is *so* not the default.
The default is mass poverty, societal collapse, or even human extinction.
I really do not trust the current governments and corporations to handle this well.
Ai shouldn’t replace anyone. The issue with companies is when new technologies come out quite often they omit their staff to be more financially efficient at the expense of the product. Eventually people realise the product costs f all to make so it becomes cheaper then the company loses money anyway. The system in general is due a change. Before massive corporations had monopolies there was a direct correlation between quality and price encouraging the best possible product. The above system has diminished this and as such money becomes worthless
It is with huge irony that AI is more likely to replace higher level workers than lower level ones. Bring on the AI apocalypse.
Won’t anyone think of the poor CEOS! The inhumanity of it!
Oh workers too, naa those aren’t humans their replaceable bio bots.
😮💨
Have you met “AI” ? Or what we call AI = LLMs. They’re so unreliable, that many users, after the initial excitement, either reduce their usage or become paranoid and verify every LLM output.
A good CEO is still integral and worth their income. The problem is when you have a bad ceo.
End of the day, for business deals you still need a central lead, and not AI. We also all know AI is unreliable. It would be a disaster if you replace a good leader with AI.
They’d have to automate the alumnus and old boys clubs. The who you know part. And the cult of personality part. The bits that make up investment gravity and allay accountability to governments and what not. To say nothing of the “taste” and foresight to predict and steer into deflationary curves without tipping off competitors.
A virtualized psychopath that knows all the things that others know isn’t going to be up to the whole job. It’ll be interesting to see how far companies that try it get though.
I’ve been saying this forever. CEOs should be automated and people should purchase shares of these companies and raise hell about it at shareholder meetings.
I mean, they always say that they hate laying people off, but their hands are tied and they HAVE to do what’s best for shareholders. Here we go- it goes both ways.
It would be more empathetic and probably equally honest
I personally would like to state that I would have a hardy belly laugh at any CEO who lost his/her job to AI. I’m sure they would understand though. Any job lost to progress is still progress right?
hah yeah ceos are not stupid last thing they would invest in and approve
I’ve seen this take multiple times in multiple studies. The reality is, it would take the board of directors to say “let’s replace the CEO with AI”. Problem is, the board is made up of CEOs from other places, so they know if they do it to another CEO, their board will do it to them, so it’ll never happen.
Because all of this is just and solely about power.
CEOs are part of the owner class. They’re not going to make themselves redundant. It’s like asking landlords to stop being landlords.
No no no no no… you don’t understand! The only reason they’re doing this is so they can replace US! Theeeeeey aren’t supposed to be the target /s
Circlejerk aside, someone has the take responsibility for a company as a whole and I expect an AI can’t legaly do so.
Sure, most of their work can be done by an AI, but that just means these guys will get paid the same for even less work
CEOs’ pay packages are negotiated with a board of directors usually made up of other CEOs. Since they sit on each others’ boards, cost of CEOs remuneration has gone through the roof. It’s a great gig. It will not be easy to crowbar AIs into that land of milk and honey.
I dislike CEOs as much as the next person, but having AI rather than people run major companies responsible for the production of food, building materials, medicine, etc. strikes me as a pretty horrible idea.
You dont want CEOs replaced because unlike AI, CEOs are atleast capable of caring about the human aspect of those underneath them. AI would simply find the most efficient way to run the company, such as just firing the bottom 10% each week or something no exceptions. Sure some CEOs probably do that but my point is that none of the complaints you have about CEOs goes away with AI.
If it was profitable for big business to run without a CEO they would do so.
The headline of ‘CEOs are hugely expensive’ is missing the point completely, they are there to add value beyond their compensation many times over.
How is an AI supposed to do coke?
So the CFO or COO will be the scapegoat when things go poorly? Okay automate the entire C suite. Then blame the top VP, that position then becomes higher paying to hold that responsibility. It’s a sad truth
CEOs are being replaced. The problem is that the average worker isn’t competent enough to do it.
The best example I can give of CEOs being replaced is the creative scene. It used to be if you wanted to be an actor or actress — you would have to go through Hollywood. Have agents, CEOs and all that jazz.
Now if you want to act, you just buy a camera and run your own media business and throw that stuff online. Linus Tech Tips is a great example of someone who replaced the CEO of a traditional media company and he basically became the new CEO.
Musicians are doing the same thing. Instead of working for a company and having a boss, a lot of them are self-managed and run their own companies.
AI and Tech DOES ALLOW individuals the ability to replace their bosses and become indie. The problem is the average worker doesn’t want to be the kind of person who can lead things.
And if you think “wow, I have to be responsible for everything?” Then you realize that maybe a CEO really is an important part of the company.
Because yeah, you can replace almost any job with AI. But WHO is going to be the one responsible for all the messes and problems? When you’re an employee and call in sick — your boss man fixes all the consequences of that issue. If you’re the boss man and call in sick, you still have to fix all the problems.
We’re never going to get to a point where a cog-in-the-machine worker can slack and have a robot baby them. Whoever is doing the babying will always be the highest earner.
So now that we have the tech — who’s willing to step up and go Indie?
There isn’t a person on this planet that can explain why a CEO is worth $10 million a year while the workers are on minimum or below minimum wage.
Fucking Greed! The GFC was the perfect example. While the world went backwards because major financial institutions fucked up, their CEOs still pocketed billions in “bonuses”. And governments globally bailed them out with taxpayer money!
But, you know, Socialism bad…..
Vision-industry_connection-skill-experience-expertise-leadership is valued and sought after based entirely on market demand.
In a perfect world, the board of directors would consider snatching that CEO-material individual before their competitors do, at the lowest price they can tolerate.
So it’s not how much work the CEO physically produces that earns them their salary, it’s their market value (and year-end company performance etc.)
In principle, that is.
In reality I think none of that is quite true, at least not to the extent it should be.
CEOs are truly the most useless function. They’re the most disconnected from their own business and the most likely to run it into the ground. Mark Zuckerberg spent $70 billion on the metaverse. It completely failed, just like everyone predicted. Imagine if that money had just been invested in an index fund.
While CEO roles are overpaid, you can’t replace them in all of the industries.
Some industries, banking/pharmaceutical etc., CEO roles carry accountability which AI cannot be held accountable for.
Secondly, many CEOs hold equity in the business or are on the board too, so it’s like saying let AI be the owner of your house 🤷♂️
I agree with the sentiment but CEO’s are nothing compared to big fund managers which are much more likely to be replaced by AI.
This shows a lack of what CEOs are. They are smoozers, people with important contacts and friends in government and industry. It’s not because they are brilliant or doing boots on the ground work.
The c-suite are the ones deploying AI en mass, they’ll never allow themselves to be replaced.
The whole purpose behind the AI-push is so the wealthy can access talent and labor without having to pay for it, pocketing the difference for themselves.
They want to create a completely separated economy where they control the machines that provide the goods and luxuries they need and they only circulate wealth among themselves, leaving the rest of us peasants to fight over increasingly scarce and expensive essentials.