“The one thing a boss does not want is co-determination. Bosses are haunted by the knowledge that even though they fancy that they’re driving the car, if they don’t show up, everything continues to work. Whereas if the workers don’t show up, everything shuts down. And so perhaps they’re in the back seat with a toy steering wheel. AI is the promise of wiring that toy steering wheel directly into the drivetrain of the car. It’s products without product designers. Workplaces without workers, screenplays without screenwriters, movies without actors, hospitals without doctors and nurses. This is the promise.”

This is very true I think. Tech "leaders" in this era are mostly con artists/salesmen with limited technical knowledge, huge egos and probably very few or no real friends: think Sam Altman, Elon or Zuck. Being in total control of the technical aspects of their companies with those pesky engineers reduced to AI operators must be incredibly tempting for them, even if it's just snake oil that generates useless/buggy slop and destroys employee morale.

When you compare them with someone like Bob Noyce from Intel (extremely proficient both technically and on the business side) you can easily see how mediocre Silicon Valley has become.

Interesting read indeed.

As with anything, “eat the fruit but spit out the pits” apply, but there is lots of meat in the core of the message. Shooting the messenger won’t change the message, even if the messenger is kinda funny.

TheMobRules wrote on 2026-06-24, 23:22:

“The one thing a boss does not want is co-determination. Bosses are haunted by the knowledge that even though they fancy that they’re driving the car, if they don’t show up, everything continues to work. Whereas if the workers don’t show up, everything shuts down. And so perhaps they’re in the back seat with a toy steering wheel. AI is the promise of wiring that toy steering wheel directly into the drivetrain of the car. It’s products without product designers. Workplaces without workers, screenplays without screenwriters, movies without actors, hospitals without doctors and nurses. This is the promise.”

that's an interesting quote because it seems to imply the "bosses" don't understand the implication - if they don't need workers then nor do others - its an invitation for constant challengers who don't need to conjure up experienced workforces to compete. (i'm 100% sure of the premise; fear of co-determination, either - but its a part of things sure)

Of course its not as simple as that, but in any case the "winner" here isn't the boss of a random company in market x trying to compete or do the same with less workers, its the bosses of a provider of the AI plus services that those other companies are relying on.

You are familiar with the seminal work by Dunning and Kruger, yes?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

The kind of boss that would think that they can eliminate all those awful workers, are the kind that would never consider such an outcome.

Consider the implication, when combined with P.T. Barnum's Maxim.

There are of course, more implications.

Who will be buying the products their workforceless production lines produce, using what money?

The only people with jobs will be bosses.

Who will they be selling to?

And, as you pointed out, the people selling the robot workforce on a subscription, will still want their lump of flesh.

It's a gloomy future for these naive bosses.
very gloomy.

Maybe it is the final chapter of capitalism. The promise to eventually completely get rid of the “worker” is now giving us the Trillionaires (who are either building bunkers or planning an Golgafrincham escape). If we really are all NPCs, the plot seems to be from a B-Movie