The Wall Street Journal recently published an article asking when and if AI humanoid robots could be CEOs and manage companies.
AI evangelists Sam Altman of OpenAI and Elon Musk of Tesla and xAI say that AI robots are already performing remarkable engineering and logistics activities, and we can expect them to become business leaders in the future. For example, Musk says they can run car companies.
Time just named AI and robot pioneers their “Man of the Year.” IBM’s Deep Blue computer defeated the world’s best chess player in 1997. Today, nearly a billion people use ChatGPT or its competing intelligence programs every week. There are nearly 5 million industrial robots in use today, including as many as 750,000 robots used in Amazon warehouses. “True AI-powered humanoid robots” are being trained in the thousands now, but they are expected to be with us in the millions in the near future.
We’re becoming accustomed to self-driving cars and trucks on the highway, and we know that generative AI programs are increasing productivity across a range of professions, from financial services to healthcare. AI can help you plan your trip, write your will and write your novel.
There are some alarming stories of young people using AI as therapists, and there are persistent fears that AI will be a source of political and ethnic disinformation campaigns. We know that AI can make mistakes and be downright wrong. Just like people?
Now we are told that AI robots are successfully competing with A-level students on standardized tests such as the SAT and law exams. Some places are using AI robots to settle legal disputes when it’s just paperwork.
When will robots take on leadership responsibilities in business or other professions? Most people don’t believe that even the best-trained robots can run businesses. Not fast. Probably never. But we will be hearing this topic debated for a long time to come.
Robots will become valued executive assistants and even co-managers, but humans will be needed for vision, integrity and moral leadership. Leaders must be smart, and they must also know how to read the room and have the emotional and situational intelligence to navigate ambiguity and paradox. Human leaders bring out the best in us – with inspiration and loyalty.
Some robotics experts believe that humanoid robots will never have the agility that humans have. Elon Musk disagrees and predicts that his project Optimus and its successors will be able to be surgeons. There is also talk of robots replacing radiologists. The reality is that radiologists with AI are replacing radiologists without AI. And AI will undoubtedly transform the medical and nursing industries.
Human-AI partnerships and collaborations are what is in our future, but human replacement and domination by robots is not in our future. But Musk and others may be right: Robot labor may one day equal human labor, and new job creation may lag behind job elimination. An example of this is that Amazon needs fewer warehouse workers. And while there is a need for long-haul truck drivers today, this may not be the case in ten years. New technologies are disruptive and impact many once cherished businesses. Remember Blockbuster? Sears? Drive-in theaters?
What about robots and AI machines that spread misinformation and have biases or lie? This may be the case, but many of us who regularly use ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and their rivals have been impressed by how quickly these learning models have improved and how they can incorporate vast amounts of research into readable and useful briefings. Those of us who are older remember having to go to our local public library and consult the Encyclopedia Brittanica for background information. Now the entire local library seems to be available on our personal computers or smartphones.
Yet leadership intelligence and artificial intelligence are not the same. We know that human leaders can lie and spread disinformation. Most presidents have done this. Enron and Bernie Madoff and Sam Bankman-Fried did this. Guardrails, safeguards, and at least some regulation are needed for both humans and robots.
We need all the leadership we can get. Humanoid robots and chatbots can help with this. But we will still want and need gifted people who have ‘street smarts’ and ‘people skills’, who are excellent listeners who can ‘peer their ears’ and who can be relentlessly curious. We understand that robots can be programmed to be empathetic and remain calm in crises. But could they resemble George Washington and Abraham Lincoln in times of great challenge and crisis? Neither of them went to college, but they had leadership intelligence, knew how to gain trust, develop leadership capital, and had the ability to get the best out of others. They learned quickly, learned from their mistakes and had the knack of surrounding themselves with talented people. They had the ability to deal with complexity, stress, ambiguity and contradictions.
Creative people tend to be smart, but what sets them apart is their willingness to challenge rules and conventional thinking. Can robots defy their training? Thomas Edison is said to have said, “There are no rules here, we’re trying to achieve something.” People with leadership intelligence look at things differently, explore beyond traditional boundaries and see things in a larger and different context.
Apple’s Steve Jobs returned to the company that fired him twelve years earlier. He considered himself more of an artist than an engineer-scientist. But he surrounded himself with as many creative people as he could recruit. After his return, he developed an advertising campaign to celebrate creativity and Apple. It was aimed at its employees and customers. “To the crazies. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They don’t like rules. And they may not respect the status quo… and while some people may see them as the crazies, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.”
Jobs wasn’t talking about robots. He talked about innovative, creative people and the breakthroughs they could make.
People interested in developing their leadership competencies and leadership intelligence can start by reading the authors and plays, and watching the films below:
Authors: Peter Drucker, Warren Bennis, Howard Gardner, Daniel Goleman, Clayton Christensen, Jim Collins, Tom Peters, John Gardner and Walter Issacson.
Plays: Antigone, Othello, Henry V, Coriolanus, enemy of the people, the visit, 12 evil men, death and the king’s horseman, the best man.
Movies: Lord of the Flies, Lincoln, Twelve O’clock High, High Noon, Oppenheimer, All the Kings Men, Fog of War, Caine Mutiny, Ghandi and All the President’s Men.
These writers, plays and films emphasize that leadership is a combination of heart and head, feelings and thoughts, intuition and analysis. AI will help, but humans must be taught, trained and coached to be our key leaders.
Tom Cronin writes regularly about politics and is co-author of ‘Leadership Matters’ and the recently published ‘American Politics Film Festival’.
