If the agent swarm is collectively smarter and better than the SRE, they'll be replaced just like other types of workers. There is no domain that has special protection.
The models are not smarter than us by far. Have you not run into issues with reasoning and comprehension with them? They get confused, they miss big details, build complicated code thats ineffective. They don't work well at tasks that require a larger holistic understanding of the problem. The models are weak, brittle reasoners, because they have an indirect and contradictory understanding of the wold. We're several breakthroughs away and several hardware generations from having models that are robust reasoners for grounded, non-kind problems.
A uniquely important thing that a CEO brings to the table is accountability. You can't automate accounta- ...sorry, I can't continue this with a straight face :DDD
You can only replace someone who was useful. If one is useless, but is still there, it means they are not there for their contribution and you can't replace them by automating whatever it might have been.
The thing about C-suite executives is they usually have short tenures, however the management levels below them are often cozy in their bureaucracy, resist change, often trying to outlast the new management.
I actually argue that AI will therefore impact these levels of management the most.
Think about it, if you were employed as a transformational CEO would you risk trying to fight existing managers or just replace them with AI?
>I actually argue that AI will therefore impact these levels of management the most.
Not AI but bad economy and mass layoffs tend to wipe out management positions the most. As a decent IC, in case of layoffs in bad economy, you'll always find some place to work at if you're flexible with location and salary because everyone still needs people who know how to actually build shit, but nobody needs to add more managers in their ranks to consume payroll and add no value.
A lot of large companies lay off swags of technical staff regularly (or watch them leave), and rotate CEOs but their middle management have jobs for life - as the Peter Principe states, they are promoted to their highest respective incompetence and stay there because no CEO has time to replace them.
Disagree with the "jobs for life" part for management. Only managers who are there thanks to connection, nepotism or cronyism, are there for life as long as those shielding them also stay in place. THose who got in or got promoted to management meritocratically don't have that protection and are the first to be let go.
At all large MNCs I worked at, management got hired and fired mostly on their (or lack thereof) connections and less on what they actually did. Once they got let go, they had near impossible time finding another management position elsewhere without connections in other places.
Yes I was talking about middle managers mostly. Upper management, C-suite, execs are mostly protected from firing unless they F-up big time like sexual assault, hate speech, etc.
Ultimately, no. But when we get to this point - once we have AI deciding on its own what needs to be done in the world in general - then the bottom falls out, and we'll all be watching a new global economy, in which humans won't partake anymore. At best, we'll become pets to our new AI overlords; more likely, resources to exploit.
The make the decisions so I doubt they will soon themselves to be automated away. Their main risk will be that nobody can buy their products once everything is automated.
I wonder if capitalism and democracy will be just a short chapter in history that will be replaced by something else. Autocratic governments seem to be the most prevalent form of government in history.