Should my next boss be an artificial intelligence?

Humans are emotional, irrational and biased. Hardly an ideal recipe for running a company. So would an AI do a better job?

- PROF TONY PRESCOTT

Elon Musk is rarely out of the news these days. Widely acknowledged to be the world's richest man, he's also known for running a number of major companies. The trouble is, some of those companies haven't been doing so well lately.

Twitter (now known as X) is said to have lost around 75 per cent of its value during Musk's time as CEO. Meanwhile, sales of Teslas, the electric cars made by another company Musk is currently CEO of, are said to be slumping despite a wider increase in registrations of electric vehicles generally.

One of Tesla's major investors has publicly called for Musk to step down as CEO and there have been rumours (denied by the company) that the board might be seeking to replace him. But if someone else were to take his place, who's to say they'd do any better? Maybe Musk is doing the best any human could under the circumstances. Maybe, given the demands of the job, a human just isn't enough. But could an artificial intelligence (AI) be up to the task?

In an attempt to answer this question, I asked a large-language model (LLM) AI directly, giving it this prompt: “You are the CEO of an electric vehicle firm with a turnover of $100 billion, selling nearly 2 million cars a year and with over 100,000 employees. What would be your strategy for growing the business over the next five years?”

The AI replied, almost instantly, with a 350-word answer beginning: “...I'd implement a five-year growth strategy focused on scaling intelligently, deepening ecosystem control and pioneering innovation — all while navigating geopolitical, environmental and technological shifts...” It then proceeded to outline what it called “a strategic blueprint across six core pillars”, with the focus being to sell more cars into unpenetrated markets.