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CEO fired developers to make room for AI. Developers create open source AI CEO

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Re: CEO fired developers to make room for AI. Developers create open source AI CEO

#21
post #6

What does a CEO(and other managers) do really? Sometimes the claim is "set vision" - which AI can extract from the collective. Someimes the claim is to prioritize the work (with bias), AI can extract that from the collective too, right? Making resources available to the team? AI. Coordinating between teams? AI. Can the AI do this in a more un-biased way? Can it refine collective intelligence and desire into objective…

> What does a CEO(and other managers) do really?

The answer is to be responsible to the business. The buck stops at the CEO. Therefore, their responsibilities are technically everything in the entire company. And I think many people who have only worked for other people underestimate how valuable that responsibility is.

Re: CEO fired developers to make room for AI. Developers create open source AI CEO

#22

I’m all for productive people, brilliant engineers. I still get dirty with codes/work all the way down to the newly hired fresh out of college kids, to the production architects that shapes multi-million, if not billions, of P&L. I’m also very lucky to be included in key decision making, planning, negating amongst the boards of C-Suites, Directors, VPs. A very personal view but many developers/engineers fail to see t…

> A very personal view but many developers/engineers fail to see the overall picture. And yes, I was there and I went through all of the mistakes.

What is failling to see the overall picture? I hate this overall picture mysticism. I bet that if people where given the same role and information as the CEO they would be able to see the overall picture.

Re: CEO fired developers to make room for AI. Developers create open source AI CEO

#23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sometimes the claim is "set vision" - which AI can extract from the collective. To be an effective CEO, you have to make judgement calls that the collective can’t always have wisdom and context on, is confidential, or requires fast decision making during which there are interactive discussions or negotiations!

Like RTO mandates which were definitely made with wisdom.

Not all CEOs did that. Just like all software engineers aren't great or excellent, all CEOs aren't. But to categorically denounce seems rigid.

Re: CEO fired developers to make room for AI. Developers create open source AI CEO

#24
post #19
post #6

What does a CEO(and other managers) do really? Sometimes the claim is "set vision" - which AI can extract from the collective. Someimes the claim is to prioritize the work (with bias), AI can extract that from the collective too, right? Making resources available to the team? AI. Coordinating between teams? AI. Can the AI do this in a more un-biased way? Can it refine collective intelligence and desire into objective…

In the current legal framework, AI can't be held accountable, a human being is required. That is what the CEO is for – to be on the receiving end of beatings and flogging if the business they are at the masthead of effs something up.

Good point. CEOs of companies are often held personally accountable for corporate malfeasance by "the current legal framework".

Re: CEO fired developers to make room for AI. Developers create open source AI CEO

#25
post #6

What does a CEO(and other managers) do really? Sometimes the claim is "set vision" - which AI can extract from the collective. Someimes the claim is to prioritize the work (with bias), AI can extract that from the collective too, right? Making resources available to the team? AI. Coordinating between teams? AI. Can the AI do this in a more un-biased way? Can it refine collective intelligence and desire into objective…

To paraphrase Andy Grove:

> The job of an executive is: to define and enforce culture and values for their whole organization, and to ratify good decisions.

(And that's the whole list! Nowhere do you find set tasks or make decisions)

To me, that means that they're still pretty essential - on both fronts, AI needs values and AI needs a system that can tell whether decisions are good or not.

Re: CEO fired developers to make room for AI. Developers create open source AI CEO

#26
This has likely been the case as long as jobs have existed. Some CEOs spend their entire time tweeting, apparently.

The way any large company works, and this includes all the big tech companies, is that they end up in a state of constant churn. Every 6 months or so there's a reorganization. There'san old joke that you get an email that your manager's manager's manager's manager now reports to a new manager and you've never heard of any of these people.

The point of that churn is to make sure nobody is ever held responsible for something not working. It's never given enough time. That's by design. Middle (and even senior) management is about empire-building.

Another quote that springs to mind is that the bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy. That's how I feel about management bloat.

Anyone who has paid attention to Intel's downfall in the last decade will have heard stories about how the company descended into fiefdoms and it became impossible to get anything done. That's what happens.

Most people in these organizations aren't particularly talented at anything other than forming social relationships. the leadership of these companies always end up having an adversarial relationship with their workers and try to suppress their wages to increase profits so they can get their stock options and bonuses and the CEOs all sit on each other's boards of directors setting each other's compensation packages. It's a lootocracy.

The point of all this is that the leadership will never decide that they are the problem. Take Meta's Metaverse. It was a $70 billion flop. A lot of people got laid off from that. Were any of those worker bees responsible? Nope. They didn't choose the strategy or probably even what they worked on. It takes a lot for heads to roll within senior leadership and with the vote-stacked share structures of many major tech companies, ousting a CEO is essentially impossible.

Re: CEO fired developers to make room for AI. Developers create open source AI CEO

#27
post #6

What does a CEO(and other managers) do really? Sometimes the claim is "set vision" - which AI can extract from the collective. Someimes the claim is to prioritize the work (with bias), AI can extract that from the collective too, right? Making resources available to the team? AI. Coordinating between teams? AI. Can the AI do this in a more un-biased way? Can it refine collective intelligence and desire into objective…

> What does a CEO(and other managers) do really? The answer is to be responsible to the business. The buck stops at the CEO. Therefore, their responsibilities are technically everything in the entire company. And I think many people who have only worked for other people underestimate how valuable that responsibility is.

Many people observe reality, where the workers end up being the ones held accountable for the CEO's decisions, not the CEO.

Re: CEO fired developers to make room for AI. Developers create open source AI CEO

#28
post #6

What does a CEO(and other managers) do really? Sometimes the claim is "set vision" - which AI can extract from the collective. Someimes the claim is to prioritize the work (with bias), AI can extract that from the collective too, right? Making resources available to the team? AI. Coordinating between teams? AI. Can the AI do this in a more un-biased way? Can it refine collective intelligence and desire into objective…

> What does a CEO(and other managers) do really?

Be friends with the board. Negotiate high pay and benefits (for themselves), and a golden parachute in case things go south (which they do most often). Take credit for things that were going to happen anyways. Blame xyz for things that didn't work out.

These are all impossible tasks for AI. AI can't play golf.

Re: CEO fired developers to make room for AI. Developers create open source AI CEO

#29

I’m all for productive people, brilliant engineers. I still get dirty with codes/work all the way down to the newly hired fresh out of college kids, to the production architects that shapes multi-million, if not billions, of P&L. I’m also very lucky to be included in key decision making, planning, negating amongst the boards of C-Suites, Directors, VPs. A very personal view but many developers/engineers fail to see t…

> Almost all decisions that businesses take have nothing to do with the proficiencies of technologies or engineering finesse, or even the best options, but mostly on “incentives” and who can take/own the “blame.”

This argument always confuses me because it seems like lower level employees are the ones that get quickly dismissed when things get bad while a lot of C level executives seem to have some sort of compensation even if they fuck up.

Re: CEO fired developers to make room for AI. Developers create open source AI CEO

#30
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the current legal framework, AI can't be held accountable, a human being is required. That is what the CEO is for – to be on the receiving end of beatings and flogging if the business they are at the masthead of effs something up.

Good point. CEOs of companies are often held personally accountable for corporate malfeasance by "the current legal framework".

I understand your sarcasm but that’s what the limited in LLC is for.

Unbounded liability means nobody starts a business, or they do it under the table without responsibility or taxes.

Turns out we want successful private businesses much more than we want to hold a few nasty CEOs accountable.

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