CEOs are hugely expensive. Why not automate them? (2021)

Economic incentives & power dynamics

• Some argue automating CEOs wouldn’t reduce rent extraction; it would just shift the surplus to AI vendors or whoever controls the system.
• Principal–agent problems persist: whoever configures and oversees the AI would inherit the CEO’s leverage over shareholders and resources.
• Others see CEO pay as rational: the role has huge leverage, very few people can do it well at scale, and even “obscene” compensation can be a bargain relative to impact.

Accountability, law, and liability

• Legal and fiduciary duties (especially under Delaware law) are generally non-delegable and must be exercised by natural persons.
• Commenters emphasize that accountability is the core blocker: who goes to jail or gets sued when AI-driven decisions cause harm or fraud?
• Some jest about “rubber-stamp humans” or shells taking the fall, but others note this would violate numerous laws and be hard to sustain.

What CEOs actually do

• One camp claims CEO work is mostly soft skills: setting tone and culture, aligning thousands of people, networking, salesmanship, and “people skills.”
• Another camp is skeptical, seeing many CEOs as overpaid figureheads, PR machines, or cartel members justifying each other’s pay.
• There is disagreement over how rare truly capable CEOs are, and how much luck, connections, and class background matter.

Feasibility of AI CEOs

• Proponents see LLMs handling analytics-driven strategy, communications, PR, shareholder letters, and even much routine decision-making better than mediocre executives.
• Skeptics stress current AI’s brittleness, lack of grounded judgment, inability to model complex human relationships, and dependence on clear reward functions that executive work lacks.
• Some note similar “this job is too human to automate” arguments were made by artists, programmers, and others, and question why CEOs would be uniquely safe.

Networks, culture, and trust

• Many highlight that CEO value often lies in personal networks, backchannel influence, and the ability to build or shift organizational culture—seen as hard to encode or replicate.
• Trust from shareholders, customers, and employees is presented as inherently tied to a human figurehead, though a few challenge this assumption.

Power, inequality, and ideology

• Several comments connect the debate to propaganda about meritocracy, extreme inequality, and why ordinary workers defend CEO pay.
• A recurring theme: tech leaders eagerly discuss automating everyone else, but object when their own roles are questioned, revealing underlying class interests.