If AI ends up running companies better than people, won’t shareholders demand the switch? A board isn’t paying a CEO $20 million a year for tradition, they’re paying for results. If an AI can do the job cheaper and get better returns, investors will force it.
And since corporations are already treated as “people” under the law, replacing a human CEO with an AI isn’t just swapping a worker for a machine, it’s one “person” handing control to another.
That means CEOs would eventually have to replace themselves, not because they want to, but because the system leaves them no choice. And AI would be considered a “person” under the law.
They would do it because the big investors–not randos with a 401k in an index fund, but big hedge funds–demand that AI leads the company. This could potentially be forced at a stockholder meeting without the board having much say.
I don’t think it will happen en masse for a different reason, though. The real purpose of the CEO isn’t to lead the company, but to take the fall when everything goes wrong. Then they get a golden parachute and the company finds someone else. When AI fails, you can “fire” the model, but are you going to want to replace it with a different model? Most likely, the shareholders will reverse course and put a human back in charge. Then they can fire the human again later.
A few high profile companies might go for it. Then it will go badly and nobody else will try.