This company just appointed a robot as its new interim CEO

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By Matthew Griffin Robo Revolution 26th November 2023

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF

While this is probably not the best idea we are already seeing technologies such as AI automate CEO’s and boards, and this one comes with a body attached.

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A little while ago, hot on the heels of Jack Ma saying that one day Artificial Intelligence (AI) will one day replace CEO’s, I talked about a company that appointed AI as its CEO, and now it turns out that we’ve got a robot in the hot seat.

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Over the past year, we’ve all become intimately familiar with sophisticated but deeply flawed AI chatbots that can draft up a work E-Mail or high school essay with a simple prompt. Even the concept of working alongside AI algorithms seems far less far-fetched than it did just a year ago. But what if you had to report to an AI boss instead? And what if that AI came in the form of a creepy, uncanny-looking humanoid robot CEO?

Meet your new CEO!

Earlier this year, Polish drinks company Dictador announced that it had anointed a robot called Mika as its “Experimental CEO.”

The robot was created by Hanson Robotics, the company also behind the famed humanoid Sophia, and was hailed as the “first AI human-like robot CEO” of a global company.

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“I don’t really have weekends – I’m always on 24/7, ready to make executive decisions and stir up some AI magic,” the robot told Reuters in a “video interview” at the time. But while the rum company sees its robot as the key to its future successes, others aren’t as convinced the tech is ready for prime time just yet.

Fox Business reporter Lauren Simonetti recently interviewed Mika over a video call and found that there was a “significant delay” in the time it takes for the robot to actually respond.

Simonetti also took to the streets, asking New York City residents what they thought of the robotic CEO. While one person said they would treat it with compassion, another person argued that “robots don’t need respect” because they’re “just machines.”

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If machine learning systems do keep getting stronger, though, using them in lieu of human executives might not be the farthest-fetched idea.

In a survey from earlier this year, for instance, The Hustle found that 40 percent of all respondents said it makes sense to replace CEOs with AI – after all, they won’t think twice about dirty work like firing human employees, and now it appears that one day those redundancy notices could be a two way street …

Matthew Griffin / About Author

Matthew Griffin, multi-award winning Futurist and named Futurist of the Year 2024, has been described as a "Walking encyclopaedia of the future" by NASA and a futurist polymath. One of the world's most renowned futurists and strategic foresight experts Matthew is the 15 times author of the blockbuster "Codex of the Future" series, and is the Founder and Futurist in Chief of the 311 Institute, a global Futures and Deep Futures advisory firm working across the next 50 years, XPotential University, the world's first free futures and foresight university, and the World Futures Forum which works with the United Nations to solve the worlds greatest challenges. Matthew is an in demand international keynote, acclaimed university lecturer and mentor, and host of the hit Fanatical Futurist podcast.

A rare talent in his past Matthew helped build and run several multi-billion dollar business units for Atos, Dell-EMC, and IBM, and his ability to identify, track, and explain the impacts of hundreds of emerging technologies and trends on global business, culture, and society has earned him a powerful reputation and a roster of clients that include royal households, world leaders, G7, G20, and G77+ governments, and many of the world's most respected brands including ABB, Accenture, Adidas, AON, ARM, BCG, Centrica, Citi Group, Coca Cola, Dentons, Deloitte, Disney, Dow, EY, KPMG, Lego, Legal & General, LinkedIn, Microsoft, PepsiCo, Qualcomm, RWE, Samsung, T-Mobile, UBS, VISA, and many others. He was also the only futurist invited to talk at the UN COP28 held in Dubai alongside world leaders.

Regularly featured in the global media including the AP, BBC, Bloomberg, CNBC, Discovery, Forbes, Khaleej Times, Telegraph, TIME, ViacomCBS, WIRED, and the WSJ, Matthews mission is to help organisations create a fair and sustainable future whose benefits are shared by everyone irrespective of their ability, background, or circumstances.