AI is becoming so sophisticated that companies may begin using machine leaders, says futurist and social entrepreneur Roger James Hamilton

The rate at which technology is advancing is gathering pace at phenomenal speed. The way we learn, earn, bank, travel, consume, socialise and do business has altered dramatically in the last five years alone, and the exponential speed of change is set not only to continue but to increase. 

In the same way that we look back 500 years to the renaissance, future generations will refer to a new renaissance set to take place over the next 10 years. For example, in these next 10 years, the United Nations has identified a set of global goals to be reached by the year 2030 in which we will see a massive shift toward renewable energies, space travel, and other new frontiers.

We are on the verge of a different era in society and specifically technology. As with the dawn of the internet 25 years ago, this new shift is coming faster than we imagine.

Virtual and augmented reality leading to something bigger and more immersive than the internet: the metaverse. This is an immersive 3-D virtual world that mirrors our world, and it will eventually displace the 2-D search-based internet. We could see this next frontier in online interaction becoming commonplace in 5-10 years. This new sphere will revolutionise every aspect of our lives from how we work to how we interact with each other.  

What does this mean for global markets and the business world? Not only will online marketing as we know it be transformed by the metaverse (just as it was with social media 15 years ago) but the very way we do business, spend money, educate and learn, work and interact with others will alter – life as we know it will be transformed. 

Markets, entire economies and even entire countries will grow up in this virtual world. Big data collected by the IoT will be converted into a new type of intelligence by AI and this will stretch to every corner of society. 

Just imagine, there will be no more Google search because we will have our own virtual assistants doing searches for us. Keyboards will be redundant as we will walk and talk just like in the real world. There will be no need for apps either as we will just travel from world to world. Screen time as we know it will also be a thing of the past as we could access the metaverse through real world devices. No more storing by IP address but actually by time and place in virtual reality.

This is all possible within the next decade. 

What’s also feasible within the next 10 years is that some of the leading companies in the world will be using an AI in replacement of a traditional CEO. Forget lowly webpage chatbots used to enhance customer service. AI has the capacity to process staggering amounts of data in a fraction of the speed of a human – so it stands to reason that it can make much smarter decisions based on this information on the best course of action to take as a company leader. 

Dynamic human leaders possess the ability to inspire and motivate people, and also influence entire markets, like the Elon Musk effect on cryptocurrency. 

Consider the benefits of a completely unbiased, infallible, invincible CEO, minus the colossal pay packet. 

The implications are huge. Not only for cost and time efficiency and risk management, but also in terms of diversity and inclusion, performance management, talent development, potentially even communication and wellbeing. 

Employees could be hired, reviewed and rewarded (or maybe replaced) based purely on metrics rather than favouritism or company culture; gaps in knowledge and training opportunities could be predicted, identified and rectified via AI. 

Staff health could be more efficiently monitored, and any problems picked up and dealt with promptly. Personality profiling could be carried out to show how each staff member can progress via key training and interactions with others (made available through edtech). Each team member could feel more engaged through discovering how they perform best, their professional pathways and how they can most effectively impact the organisation. 

Employee networks could be created, even a large global workforce could be communicated with on a daily basis and feel connected to the company.

All through a machine CEO. 

These are just some of the examples of the positive potential of having AI operating in a leadership role. 

Of course, there are questions and limitations when it comes to emotional intelligence and ethics. Decisions based purely on metrics may well be good for company efficiency, but the results may not be in the best interests of the environment and other CSR issues, which are more qualitative in nature and difficult to programme. 

Emotional intelligence remains paramount for CEOs. Business leaders with a real sense of purpose and passion for what they do will always be necessary. 

What’s clear is that lifelong learning is becoming the norm for everyone, no matter how senior within a company. With technology speeding up processes and blurring the lines between job roles and sectors, work and leisure, also technology and reality, we all must educate ourselves in order to be ready to adapt to the extraordinary and ever evolving impacts of AI on the world of work. 

About the Author 

Roger James Hamilton is a New York Times bestselling author and Founder and CEO of Genius Group, a multi-million-dollar group of companies including GeniusU, Entrepreneurs Institute, Entrepreneur Resorts and Genius School. GeniusU is an edtech company and platform providing over 1.8 million students with personalised learning paths and is currently seeing over 1300 new students join each day to take the entrepreneur quiz and identify their path to wealth. Genius School provides education courses for young people from 0 to 25 years old. Entrepreneurs Institute provides training courses from 25 to 100 years old, and Entrepreneur Resorts is a market leading group of entrepreneur focused luxury resorts and lodges, beach clubs and city co-working hubs, offering business leaders professional educational retreats in exotic destinations around the world, including Singapore, Bali, and South Africa. Entrepreneur Resorts will be expanding to 10 further locations this year. Roger is the creator of Wealth Dynamics, Talent Dynamics, and Impact Dynamics, used by over 1.8 million entrepreneurs to follow their flow.   https://www.geniusgroup.net/