94. AI in the Driver's Seat: Giving Rise to Robotic Executives

Speaker 1: 0:10

Oh, shut up, Craig.

Speaker 2: 0:11

You're a good guy, Craig.

Speaker 1: 0:15

Welcome back to Corporate Strategy Podcast. It could have been an email. I'm Bruce and I'm Clark and we're in Craig's.

Speaker 2: 0:21

Yeah, craig is here, don't be here.

Speaker 1: 0:22

Appreciate it. Craig does a good job of recording us, but he has to just make his presence known every time he comes in. He's not cool. He's not cool, Craig.

Speaker 2: 0:32

He screams, I invite you. He screams and oh, oh he.

Speaker 1: 0:35

just you don't need to tell us what you're doing. That's your whole point. It's going to be like every time I show up I'm like I'm emailing today.

Speaker 2: 0:42

Well, I apparently do need to announce myself, because my name has now changed Once again. I've gotten hacked. Oh, the freshest Clark, no, so I'm not just Clark anymore, I'm not fresher Clark anymore. I am the freshest Clark who did this to you. I don't know, maybe it's Craig. You can kind of creeped out. I think Craig did it.

Speaker 1: 1:01

I think it was Craig, I think so. So this is weird because we're recording an episode today, on Tuesday. It's not going to come out for two weeks because we released the episode that came out yesterday. We're recording an episode with my sister-in-law, who is an attorney for unions or deals with unions, on Friday and that will be out next week, but this is coming out two weeks after that because Clark is going to the land of the rising sun.

Speaker 2: 1:31

I am the land of the rising sun. Yes, I'm going on a trip for business purposes and we will be way out of time zone sync. Yes, I think they're 13 hours ahead right now. Yeah, Does that be way too hard for us? Listen, with our capacity, you think we could coordinate 13 hours of a difference? No, there's no way. So we're just recording early. We're getting ahead of it.

Speaker 1: 1:53

So, being proactive, yes, so, if this, the thing we're going to talk about today, seems out of time, out of topic, or if the world has fallen apart, now you understand why Time travel is weird and we are in the past, talking about the future. So today's topic, I want to get it right now, because I just showed Clark Super fresh. There was an article posted in a couple of videos. Look this up. I'll post it in the Discord. This Polish drinks company has hired Does that what they are? Yes, yes, that's what they are. They have hired an AI powered CEO, and if you're thinking to yourself, well, it's probably just a CEO or AI that lives inside a computer that you know spits out ideas and factoids. You'd be wrong. It's a physical robot, human being, and it's horrifying. Clark, tell me all about it.

Speaker 2: 2:50

This is insane, yeah it's just, you know, if the corporate world couldn't get any worse, it's. We don't even trust people to make decisions. We're just going to, you know, grab this random AI creepy thing and just the image just looks so creepy, like I don't even know how to put it into words, bruce, but it just really it just gives me the heebie-jeebies, like it's perfect, like Chucky, halloween, spooky season, kind of reminisce of this timing of this, and I almost had to check myself like is it April Fools? I know, because it's just a joke, kind of playing on AI. But no, this is like a real thing and the article just gets more and more disturbing. Because I want to understand.

Speaker 2: 3:30

One they say employed, so it's like are they paying this thing? Like is it on a contract? But then, two, it's like it's not just like a gag. They're saying even big decisions and the first thing they say is hiring and firing people will. Oh no, they say that these will remain in the hands of the human executive team. So they're not saying this is like a non-experimental thing. They're saying it's experimental. It's kind of like the sense that I'm getting. That's correct.

Speaker 1: 3:55

This is so if you watch the full video, which I recommend you do, just to be weirded out by how uncanny valley this thing is. They made this decision to bring on this AI CEO because they think AI can make better decisions than people can, which is probably true at this point. I think I would trust an AI CEO over a human one, just based on my own experiences, but I did like that. The current CEO, I guess, is just now part of an executive directorship. He stated that anything that had to do with people will still be managed by a team of people. That's good. I think that. My question is why did it have to be a humanoid? Why couldn't it have just been a computer Like? Why can't it be a how Like? It's a non-human thing that talks to us Like we're like computer. Tell me what's going on. The CEO is like today you must increase profits by 500%, otherwise you will collapse, like. That's all I need. I don't need a humanoid shell with dead eyes Speaking to.

Speaker 1: 4:59

Lisa.

Speaker 2: 5:00

That's what I think makes this so weird, because they gave it a name, mika Mika, and when you personify something like, you humanize an object.

Speaker 2: 5:11

That makes it weird. And I think the thing that proved this was Silicon Valley we were mentioning before this and I just looked it up Is if anybody's seen the show Silicon Valley like that the comedic satire kind of show about actual Silicon Valley they have this one season where they go on a tangent about a company who has this AI bot named Fiona. It turns into this really weird thing, like people are hanging out and developing weird relationships with Fiona the robot and this feels this is literally the same, as I think it's just as creepy looking, it acts just as creepy and I feel like the same situation is going to happen. So maybe Silicon Valley just predicted this, but it's just so strange that it's actually like happening in real life to a company and I don't know what I'd do if I worked at this company. I'd be like, unless they told everybody internally and didn't say this externally that it's a gag, I don't know if I'd want to work here anymore, just because this seems ridiculous.

Speaker 1: 6:07

I don't think it's a gag. The robot actually says the robot Mika says in the video Don't personify it.

Speaker 2: 6:14

Don't do it. Chatgpt isn't personify. We don't give that a name. It's ChatGPT. It's a tool, but this thing is physical.

Speaker 1: 6:22

This is a physical object they treat like a human being. Mika said that they don't really have weekends. They're always on 24 seven, which one is kind of frightening, like the fact that that's the kind of go to point we had to make. The robot make was great. I don't have the human limitations of eating, sleeping and living my own life. I'm just always on. I will give it the benefit of the doubt, though. They said my decision making process relies on extensive data analysis. It's devoid of personal bias, ensuring unbiased and strategic choices, and this was where I turned around in the whole thing, because I'm here for it. It's weird, though.

Speaker 2: 7:04

It's given me a leader that's data driven.

Speaker 1: 7:06

Give me someone calling the shots that removes all the emotion, all the humanity, out of the process. Let's get down to what we need to do to be successful. Let's get rid of the nepotism, let's get rid of all of the crap that comes with our just feeble human executive leadership that we see everywhere, and let's give it to a robot. I'm here for it now.

Speaker 2: 7:29

See, this is a story as old as time. It's like I don't think business is as black and white as you're saying, like there's so much gray area and this is my personal opinion. I'd love to hear your thoughts, but I think there's so much gray area, as companies need to evolve, that you'd have to be and maybe this is what they're doing well is in this article. They state what Mika can do, however, is source potential clients for this company's high-end collectible rums, as well as choose the artists that design their custom bottles. Like they're giving it a very pointed task. I don't know if that's like CEO worthy. It's like, okay, you're generating leads and you're generating or sourcing kind of the deliverables that you need to make those valuable. You know what I mean. So it's like a little bit of lead generation, but it's still not like a CEO from that regard of telling you this is the direction we should take our company. It's more just like it's doing outbound sales or at least lead generation for you.

Speaker 1: 8:31

But at the end of the day, isn't that what a CEO does? They look at the output of sales, marketing, engineering, product management and says this is our new direction based on this data. The chief executive officer, their role is essentially high-paid decision maker that might or may not have an MBA Usually, yes, but what does a CEO do Like? What does it actually do beyond take heat when the decision goes bad and then deflecting point to people like you and me, cause it's our fault?

Speaker 2: 9:13

Yeah, if you had to pull out a race. It's like they're accountable, they're not responsible, Right.

Speaker 1: 9:19

Right Like this represents a direction I would actually love to see CEOs take, which is be more involved in the data, understand it, collate it, make decisions based on it, as opposed to well, my product manager, clark, came in today and he told me that we need to be going in this direction towards the future, which is gummy bear flavored rum, and you know, clark's never wrong. So let's just do. I trust Clark. Clark's a good old boy. He's been with the company 20 years. Let's just listen to Clark in the gummy bear flavored rum, which no one wants except for Clark. This AI would never make that mistake. They'd be like Clark. You are wrong. Do not ever suggest such a terrible idea again. We will make rum the way we've always made it for a million years.

Speaker 2: 10:14

Thank you In a lot of ways. One, I hate that you're making that voice. But two, I feel, like you know, I feel like this is just because it's devoid of either a department's not doing its job well enough, like I understand, they're trying to like reduce the need for people. Like that's what this is all about, right, like I totally get what you're saying. It's about data and you know, and it's true, it's unbiased to your point, it takes everything out of it that typically makes the corporate world so scummy. But it's really just doing a service, it's a tool, just like what you're saying.

Speaker 2: 10:49

And I imagine this company wasn't doing those things well, or whoever was doing that wasn't doing them too well. So that's why they're like, hey, let's try something new, let's see if this robot can do it instead, and we'll have this as a tool and we'll also make some news for ourselves by having this weird AI CEO thing. But the thing is is like the CEO, obviously you know, vision for the company. They're kind of the face of the company in a lot of senses. Sometimes there's like hidden CEOs. You never hear about them. But if you think about like the Elon's, the Mark Zuckerbergs, the you know whoever Bezos. You know it's all those people are the face.

Speaker 1: 11:24

Who is that Bezos?

Speaker 2: 11:25

Yeah, who's that Bezos guy? Who even needs him? Who needs him? But they're the face of the company. They kind of paint the vision and, to your point, it's like they aren't actually doing any of the day-to-day work. They're more kind of strategizing for the future and making the big decisions of oh, we've got to reduce costs by 20%, so we're going to lay off these divisions, and they have to rely a lot on their team, you know, to do the actual work. So maybe this thing is just like that personal and former to the CEO.

Speaker 1: 11:54

Maybe that's the good thing about it. Yeah, and you know you explained that. Just pointed out something that was I can't believe it's taken me this long to get here. But thank you, clark. As always, your feedback is valuable. Bezos, zuckerberg, elon cost millions of dollars to employ. You remove the CEO human and instead have a team of, let's just say, executive leaders for each department a marketing leader, a finance leader, a sales leader, product management leader. Suddenly, you just remove this million dollar employee and the company can re consume that money. They can redistribute it, they can do whatever they want with it.

Speaker 1: 12:35

But these people are expensive and they make really dumb decisions.

Speaker 2: 12:39

They do very much had no legs. I can't believe that whole thing is wild.

Speaker 1: 12:45

Amazon still sells dog food that kills dogs. Right, facebook literally stole 2016 election. Like. There are things that are continuing to happen on all these platforms the CEO actively knows about and does not care. I see this as a potential one way to remove the money layer to actually fix what's wrong with a lot of these companies. There's a lot of hubris and they've even said that this is like something I've heard multiple times. I need to fact check it. But CEOs, presidents, they are all megalomaniacs. Like you can almost die to a T. There's just something there that makes them a little bit different than you or I. I say let's give it to the robots. I, for one, welcome our robot overlords.

Speaker 2: 13:34

See, I'm usually on the robot side, so I typically side with robots too, because I don't care about you know, I'm not that interesting, so all that data that they'd have about me don't really care, you know. What are they going to do with that? Just tell me things I already know. But, to your point, I think this would be an interesting experiment of just to see how this company does Like. It's going to be interesting to watch because, to your point, I think human tendencies get in the way of sound business decisions. But I think a lot of what makes these, these companies like, let's say, all the examples we just gave, like Facebook, amazon, whatever it might be, it's, it's a thing that I don't know that data like for the, at least these types of companies.

Speaker 2: 14:16

There's plenty of other successful businesses, but if you're looking at like the giant ones, those were bets on like a dying field that no one was investing in anymore, that they made a huge bet, like a crazy bet, that everyone's like what are you doing? Like why would you dig into this? And they made such a big bet on that that they were made a huge bet and they got it right and ultimately they were successful. And I'll give you an example. It's like Nintendo, right, it's like the game, the gaming industry was like dying, like video games were dying, or it's like, okay, it doesn't really go beyond arcades and all that, everyone was leaving it. It went from like a $3 billion market to like $100 million market. And then Nintendo steps in, that's the kitchen sink on gaming, and they not only take 95% market share in like just a few years, but they also, you know, end up bringing the industry back to a $300 billion industry.

Speaker 2: 15:05

So they kind of took a dying market that all logic would say don't do this, and they made it phenomenal. And now they are who they are today, and I think you can see that trend at these other giant companies too. So I don't know that an AI CEO would do that logically, you know, because it is a little bit of emotion and it's a little bit of something that I don't think no-transcript it's smart enough to do yet. So it's going to be a really interesting experiment to say they might be able to make a sound business and sound business decisions. But truly do businesses need to be more adaptable, where there is a little bit of human in there, to be able to make the right calls at the right times, See, and I know we have a we had a hard stop right now.

Speaker 1: 15:48

So I'd love to continue this conversation but I know we have to go. It's interesting, it's something to think about. I like that we're recording this in the future, maybe we check back in a couple of months to see how we're doing this or how they're doing with this. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 16:03

I'd love to hear from our listeners, though. Like one, I'm curious would you guys actually work for a company like this that has an a fully AI CEO? Like you just jump in, you're going to get paid a decent living wage and you, just you just risk it, you're like, all right, let's see. I'm going to see what we're going to be working on today. I'm going to rely on this AI just to tell me what to do. Would you actually do that? I don't know if I would. I would Absolutely yeah, yeah, for me, like I want some with charisma, I want a leader, and I don't know that AI is that.

Speaker 1: 16:32

I'm over that. I hate that. I hate charismatic leaders. I hate them. They're the worst, especially when they're in the executive level. What I want is I want to put three different options in front of my AI CEO and say which one of these is going to get us the most awareness. When we post it out online and it's going to spit out a result, I'm going to say sweet, I trust you, let's go, let's go. I've done my job, you've done yours. My goodness, let's roll with it.

Speaker 2: 16:59

Is this where our future is going?

Speaker 1: 17:02

I want to know.

Speaker 2: 17:02

What do you guys think?

Speaker 1: 17:04

Let us know, and the way you can do that is by joining our Discord. If you're not in the audience, where are you right now? Get to our Discord Super easy. Like do you go to our website. It's corporatestrategybiz. That'sbiz, and the biz stands for business, which we're in the business of making pods. So check it out. All of our links are there. We're on Twitter, instagram, linkedin, others as well. There's so many to choose from. Check it all out on our website. Go to the contact us section to learn all about it.

Speaker 1: 17:38

If you like what you heard today, do join our Discord. We have a great group of people in there. We're always talking about things like this, having great discussions. If you like the pod, give it a good review under podcast platform of choosing. We love you. We thank you. If you heard an ad today and you want to get rid of the ads, super easy. We have a subscription program now. The way to deal with that is in the notes section of the pod. Once we hit our monthly operating cost, all ads will stop. So that's the ring endorsement to get rid of ads in the podcast. Otherwise, we all suffer together.

Speaker 2: 18:09

I think if everybody contributed like a penny or if just a handful of people contributed like a dollar, no more ads. That's how easy it is. They just disappeared.

Speaker 1: 18:20

So what a future we can live in. Corporate strategy is a listener funded and host funded endeavor right now. Right now, it's a solely host funded endeavor.

Speaker 2: 18:29

Single host. I don't incur any damages. It's really only Bruce Wouldn't really like to get there one day.

Speaker 1: 18:36

So thank you, as always, for your listenership. Whether you contribute or you just listen, you are valued. You are loved. We love you. Thank you for being here with us, as always. I'm Bruce and I'm Clark, and we'll see you next week. Now you're on mute. We'll see you next week. I had the whole thing down. I just screwed up the screw. See, this is why I don't trust AI.