[mbesto]

Yes and no. The company is a bank - it's job is to take money and make money with that. I'm not surprised executive management is publicly saying they want to make investments in assets that will help their clients and they themselves make more money.

[Henchman21]

Why is it that the C-suites, etc., have so much fucking zeal for hurting normal people? Why is it that these folks are champing at the bit for layoffs? Why do they refer to people as "human resources" or almost unimaginably worse "lower-value human capital"?

And why, why sir, do you enjoy the taste of boot so much?

[mbesto]

I think what he said is deplorable (hence "yes and no"). However I'm speaking specifically to the premise of what the parent said around "it destroys team morale". What I'm saying is that your team's morale may not necessarily be hurt if you are a team member at a bank full of investment bankers, capital financiers, etc. if the promise to them is that many of them can make more money with AI.

[slater]

Because they live in a different world.

[kyboren]

I believe "dark triad" personality traits are significantly over-represented among CEOs vs. the general population. IMO it's likely that these traits are positively selected by shareholder capitalism and traditional corporate structures.

[erulabs]

Because their job, definitionally, is to increase profit. If you increase efficiency, you've done your job well. The people who hire and fire CEOs care primarily about this metric.

There's no need for insults. Have you considered that "the boot" in this case is the structure of market capitalism itself and that this structure has benefited humanity immeasurably? It could be argued heartless bankers have done more to reduce human suffering than any other group of people to have ever lived. If bootlicking means "maybe its not so bad that humanity allocates resources rationally instead of based on some arbitrary sense of fairness" than show me the boot and I'll lick. At least this boot generates excess grain and beef.

All that said, of course it was highly stupid to say this in a place that would be heard be people outside the capital allocation system and whose feelings would be hurt by the unfuzzy truth that banks exist to make money.

[happytoexplain]

That's not what the parent commented on.

[mbesto]

"Even if AI can automate certain tasks, language like this completely destroys team morale and trust. "

That's what the parent commented on and that was my response.

[rambojohnson]

Saying ‘banks exist to make money’ in response to criticism of dehumanizing language is like responding to criticism of factory pollution with ‘factories make products.’ Yes. That’s the premise...

[anonymars]

Well, it did provide valuable insight into what possesses these executives to talk that way

[mbesto]

Once again, I was not responding to the "dehumanizing language" aspect of it, yet here you are focusing on that...odd.

[asdff]

Where does it stop? Slavery would be fine if only it were legal? I mean that is the logical conclusion of a lot of business efficiency thinking. Business efficiency in a lot of ways is inhuman and against the spirit of "the collective tribe," which was originally about mutual wellbeing, not the ever more efficient extraction of resources to the benefit of the chosen few, although it was perverted that way at some point by those with the relevant mutations predisposing them to sociopathy.

[krapp]

>Where does it stop? Slavery would be fine if only it were legal? I mean that is the logical conclusion of a lot of business efficiency thinking.

Yes. Numerous corporations use outsourced slave labor in places where it is legal, or where bribery makes it easy to look the other way. Many of the rare earth elements in your electronics were mined and the devices assembled by slave labor. Agricultural companies United Fruit Company and Nestle are notorious for teaming up with local criminal groups and kidnapping locals in various countries and running slave labor camps.

[mysteria]

Considering the unethical practices done in the name of money I wouldn't be surprised that some companies would make use of slaves if it was legal to do so.

[JohnFen]

In the US, slavery is still legal and allowable (federally -- some states don't allow it) as long as the slaves are inmates. Many companies use that labor for profit.

[RiverCrochet]

Slavery is actually legal. The 13th Amendment banning it has the explicit exception "except as punishment for a crime". Prison labor is used by a number of industries.

[fullshark]

The CEO has a fiduciary duty to act in the best financial interests of the company and its investors. So if slavery were legal and the company weren’t using slaves the CEO would be in violation of that responsibility and would be thrown out by the board.

It’s best just to view these organizations and the people who run them as immoral and sociopathic money printing machines. Expecting morality is just going to disappoint you.

[happytoexplain]

>It’s best just to view these organizations and the people who run them as immoral and sociopathic money printing machines.

People say this a lot, but that is exactly what we are doing.

We criticize their behavior and words. We are disgusted by them. We want things to change. We write about and speak about it. We vote (hopelessly). That is exactly how normal humans behave in regard to those they view as "immoral and sociopathic", as you say. "That's how the system works" is a fine thing to point out, but it's not some kind of evidence that people shouldn't react they way they do - that they should just accept it forever.

We are already doing what you are suggesting.

[fullshark]

The logical next step is then regulation is it not? I don't hear a lot of clamor for regulation on these boards.