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Many CEOs Believe Technology Will Make People Largely Irrelevant (betanews.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report on BetaNews:Although artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and other emerging technologies may reshape the world as we know it, a new global study has revealed that the many CEOs now value technology over people when it comes to the future of their businesses. The study was conducted by the Los Angeles-based management consultant firm Korn Ferry that interviewed 800 business leaders across a variety of multi-million and multi-billion dollar global organizations. The firm says that 44 percent of the CEOs surveyed agreed that robotics, automation and AI would reshape the future of many work places by making people "largely irrelevant." The global managing director of solutions at Korn Ferry Jean-Marc Laouchez explains why many CEOs have adopted this controversial mindset, saying: "Leaders may be facing what experts call a tangibility bias. Facing uncertainty, they are putting priority in their thinking, planning and execution on the tangible -- what they can see, touch and measure, such as technology instruments."

7 of 541 comments (clear)

  1. Better be ready to be beat up when layed off worke by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Better be ready to be beat up when layed off workers find out it's better to be in lock up then out on the street.

  2. Re: Better be ready to be beat up when layed off w by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Here's the problem . . . . these CEOs who are so in love with A.I./ Robotics are slowly putting themselves out of business.

    Once you've eliminated all the workers, and nobody has a job any more (no job = no money), who exactly is going to buy your company's products? Have you considered what happens when 90% of your customers no longer have any money?

    And if you think Universal Basic Income is the answer, where do think that money is going to come from? From the businesses and the wealthy? The same people who do everything they can to hide their money and avoid paying taxes? Good luck with that.

  3. Re:Better be ready to be beat up when layed off wo by sonnejw0 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's not welfare, per se; it's paying people to pursue their own goals. It provides a safe income for artists, musicians, and entertainers to be able to create new media without going through the creativity killing workforce. When people are free of a financial burden they will be free to innovate and pursue their dreams. The reason why modern Americans don't use their free time to do this already is because the American capitalist economy is a burden, not a release. People don't have time or energy to innovate because they're a cog in the wheel. If we release them from the machine, they'll be working for their own joy and not for the bottom line of some giant corporation.

  4. Re:Better be ready to be beat up when layed off wo by kaatochacha · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'd like to be a fly on the wall when they roll in the first robot CEO.
    "But, but, but, but I'm irreplaceable!"

  5. Re:Enjoy your mass insurrection/civil war, CEOs. by GameboyRMH · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you believe UBI won't work then the remaining options are:

    1. A luddite economy that prohibits certain forms of automation
    2. Killbot-powered genocide of the working class

    I assume you're thinking #1?

    --
    "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
  6. Re:Better be ready to be beat up when layed off wo by OrangeTide · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Software able to make rational business decisions based on compiling numerous sources of data seems exactly like the sort of thing we'd want instead of a CEO.

    --
    “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
  7. Re:Better be ready to be beat up when layed off wo by jeff4747 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Basic Income is a horrible idea, that is doomed for all the reasons people don't want to think about.

    People do not peacefully starve to death.

    If we're going to continue to tie "not starving to death" to employment, we're going to need to do something when employment is no longer possible.

    Basic income is one way of dealing with that. Feel free to propose a better one.