Senior execs and CEOs are now being judged by AI – whatever next?

Senior execs
Image by Thufir | Bigstockphoto

Senior execs are no longer excused from the watchful gaze of AI based Natural Language Processing (NLP). They, too, are being judged.

We read about AI ‘taking over’ a range of roles and activities (like ice cream). AI is sifting resumes to filter the applicants, AI is taking over contract work, AI is taking over, well, everything from article writing to painting to gaming.

Now, senior execs, so far immune to the advances in AI and hired for their judgement and experience are under the microscope too.

Large investors are buying extremely expensive NLP systems to listen to updates and earning calls from senior execs and CEOs. While research houses like CB Insights will count how many times a CEO will mention a (buzz)word during a call (‘Metaverse’ is now mentioned by anyone and everyone) other, larger firms have gone one, or several steps further.

It came to light earlier this year, when it became apparent that a serious chip shortage was being visited upon us and several industries panicked.

Some senior execs went on calls and said there was no need to panic, everything was fine, at worst it is a ‘blip’ and really guys, there is nothing to fear except fear itself. And the large investors still reported a problem and shares fell.

The problem was that said senior execs were not being genuine and convincing enough in their statements and answers to fool the new NLP machines. These machines smelt a slight hesitancy in the voice and told their masters, who marked the company down.

All of which is fair play and you can hear cries of ‘about time’ and ‘we need more truth and transparency from CEOs, so hurrah.’

Except, CEOs and senior execs are onto the trick. So, they are ‘retaliating’ by getting their statements written in a more convincing, better scripted way.

The large investors, however, are convinced that mere humans are no match for their machines as they constantly improve.

Meanwhile the senior execs will probably now employ AI in some form to fool the investors’ machines into believing what they have to say, so then the investors will invest some more money to see the truth in those machines and senior execs will … you get the picture.

Ultimately, though, it is difficult to see where this will go. Gone will be the days of getting real insights out of executives, gone will be the days of ‘soft touch’ decisions about investments, of backing a hunch or believing in a vision or a person. It will be machine vs machine.

Our world will be made smaller by these kind of developments, more boring, more uniform until we reach a point that we live by rules designed as optimum rules for living, by machines.

Meanwhile – what flavour ice cream would AI come up with?

Be the first to comment

What do you think?

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.