I get it’s a joke, and often a frequent cynical joke made here, but I actually think it’s a good thought experiment. Almost like a new Turing test

The thought experiment, to be clear, is building an artificially intelligent CEO or company founder with the intent of generating profit. If this AI can turn a profit, it has passed this new test

Of course, by the time this new AI starts turning a profit, it will be maximized to the extent that it loses its competitive advantage, and then we’re back to square 1. That is, when everyone uses the same AI, nobody has a competitive advantage over anyone else

My current theory is that because of this, it is not possible to build an AI that generates a profit perpetually. Only temporarily. Then human intervention would be required to adjust things to make the AI competitive again. But at that point, it’s no longer an AI driving the profit, it’s its human tinkerer

▲

Cpoll a day ago | parent | next [-]

> nobody has a competitive advantage

This presupposes that a company's competitive advantage comes primarily from their CEO.

It also presupposes that success is zero sum and winner takes all, which isn't always the case (example: when you're building out a new market segment, it can be beneficial to have competitors that are also building it out).

	▲	jameslk a day ago \| parent [-]
		> This presupposes that a company's competitive advantage comes primarily from their CEO. It’s the premise of the thought experiment: to be able to make a profit, the AI executor must achieve a competitive advantage in the market. If the AI doesn’t generate a profit, then it doesn’t fit the premise and that’s a different experiment I suppose you can claim that a profit can still be generated by offering a holistically worse service/product with no single advantage than a competitor because markets are not efficient, though this may be short lived

▲

dirkc a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Just don't put it in charge of a company making paper clips

▲

binary132 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You’re presuming here that CEOs cause companies to make profit instead of serving as a scapegoat for their often unavoidable market dynamics (at best).

▲

jameslk a day ago | parent [-]

In a 1-person company, who or what generates a profit?

▲

root_axis a day ago | parent | next [-]

One person isn't a company. Legally maybe, but there's no point in a company if you can profitably do all the labor yourself.

▲

sokoloff a day ago | parent | next [-]

I may be able to do all the labor myself, but need investors because I can’t afford the capital.

I may be able to do all the labor myself, but want to ensure continuity beyond my ability or interest to do the labor myself. (Sometimes this is by my wish; sometimes by the wish of consumers of my service.)

I may be able to do all the labor myself, but not want to expose my entire net worth to the financial obligations of the company.

There are plenty of cases where a single person company makes good sense.

▲

jameslk a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

At what point does a company become a company if one person doesn’t make a company? What’s the threshold for non-labor where a company becomes a company?

	▲	root_axis a day ago \| parent [-]
		I'd start with division of labor as a minimum.

▲

speleding a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There are holding companies with zero employees. They typically pay a management fee to someone.

▲

raegis a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Attorneys commonly do this.

▲

binary132 20 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

“I am actually the CEO of my basement office business” was not the corporate topology I was addressing with my comment.

▲

hrideshmg a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

reminds me of trading algorithms

	▲	bell-cot a day ago \| parent [-]
		Yep. But, in most senses, trading algorithms don't need to interact with humans, or human society. Is the world around the "thought experiment" AI CEO dehumanized enough that that's also the case for it? If not, I'd expect major problems there. A related point - trading algo's can completely pivot in seconds, and live & die by extremely simple and short-term metrics. Even in a human-free world, that's not at all how the vast majority of industries work. What is "profit", when your AI CEO is organizing the construction of a new steel mill? Judging its performance then requires deep domain expertise.

▲

mannanj a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Doesn't the incentive here, lead to privatizing the AI and possibly releasing a different product to the public - or at least with a delay? (not too unlike how the frontier labs work today).

	▲	jameslk a day ago \| parent [-]
		Yes I would think that would be the endgame goal. But in practice, I’m very skeptical a purely AI-driven executor can stay competitive when the market and government supporting it and surrounding it is driven by humans

▲

kelseyfrog a day ago | parent | prev [-]

You're describing the Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall[1], which, I'm sorry, is a Marxist idea so it's automatically wrong.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tendency_of_the_rate_of_profit...

	▲	n4r9 a day ago \| parent \| next [-]
		The very page you linked states that it's recognised as an empirical phenomenon by Adam Smith, who predates Marx.
	▲	a day ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		[deleted]
	▲	ImHereToVote a day ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		I see what you did there.
	▲	jdiff a day ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		This kind of thought-terminating dogmatism is unwise.