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“The rise of the chief AI officer”
Aaaaand we finally reach the stage of the Chief X Officer for X = “AI” – though, this came way, WAY faster than anticipated.
Note that despite the “job description”, it’s all fundamentally a PR activity. It’s always the same play. This is the final stage.
In a few years the role will disappear, and “AI will be folded into the business”, because the “AI Transformation” will have been achieved.
Actually, nothing of the sort will have been achieved, because “transformation” is the ultimate buzzword.
Within 1-2 years “AI” will be two or three hype cycles behind, so it will be passé to mention it as something special or to extol its virtues.
By then it will be anchored within most organizations, somehow, in an applied manner, regardless of the “CAIO”, and the breathless hype will have subsided.
I remind you of Agile, Lean, DevOps, IoT, Industry 4.0, and other monikers that went through this exact same cycle.
BTW, same goes for Sustainability, Digital… And Diversity too, a pitiful mockery of actual pursuits of organizational diversity and inclusive behaviors.
It’s all nonsense, from start to finish, especially since such topics are cross-functional and cut across the business system. Singling them out just delays reaping benefits, by making X the end and not a means to actual business ends.
But it’s mandatory nonsense in this monkey-see-monkey-do world dominated by Schein and not Sein.
I should be happy, because it proves the “Lo, and Behold, X!” book right. Only I am not, because this is just tragicomically sad.
We went from ChatGPT on December 5th, 2022, to “Chief AI Officer” being put forth as a serious role within barely half a year.
This is unprecedented.
The hype cycles become shorter and shorter. The BS gets piled higher and higher, faster and faster. People on LinkedIn went from zero to “The AI Expert” self-proclaimed status within weeks of ChatGPT launching.
(Imagine how peeved the actual AI experts working on LLMs must be! 🤣)
It’s almost like we are fast approaching a buzzword singularity.
Maybe we already have.
Can you smell the grift?
