Stop Replacing Employees with Large Language Models

The unbelievable lack of strategic vision by CEOs who are replacing people with AI instead of empowering those same humans with AI is extraordinary. 

The fact is, a business without its people cannot lead, it can only follow.

The point of life is people. The customer is always a person. The best team members are always people.  Deal makers are always people.  Visionaries are always people.  Leaders are always people.  Relationships are irreplaceable assets of inestimable value in every business. People are where impact happens. People are where innovation happens. People are where out-of-the-box novel problem solving happens. People are where accountability and accomplishment are measured and achieved. People are the entire point of every business.  People are where success lives.

Building an enterprise that does not value developing, building, nurturing, and growing people is a strategic mistake. The growing assertion among pundits and analysts that people development and employing entry level workers will become the territory for large enterprises and that small businesses will be forced to replace employees with AI bots to survive in a competitive marketplace is perhaps the most apocalyptic prediction of a shift of wealth into an elite oligarchy that I have yet heard.

If small businesses give up their people, they give up their value.

Read that again.

If small businesses let their employees go in favor of using AI toolsets that are built by large enterprises and are broadly available to everyone in the market, those small businesses are actually in process of closing their doors for good because they are removing their fundamental value proposition and will ultimately be driven out of the marketplace and replaced by the AI toolsets they adopt.

Consider this as a thought experiment.  If AI can replace what you are doing, that means that your business does not really participate in the value chain of the market economy because it does not add novel insight, judgment, wisdom, problem solving, or innovation.  The fundamental human value of every business is discovered in the novelty and proprietary contributions that bring value to the marketplace because they are not simply repeating what someone else has already done, they are having an impact, making a difference, and delivering a valuable human outcome that creates wealth, provides a return on capital, and increases the quality of life for human consumers.

What CEOs who replace people with AI bots don’t seem to appreciate is the dead end they are walking directly into.  Large Language Models (LLMs) are not innovative. LLMs are not original thinkers. LLMs are simply cut-and-paste, thoughtless, often lazy, regularly dishonest, and consistently limited employees who struggle to understand context, meaning, purpose, or design.  In other words, LLMs are employees who basically lack character, integrity, honesty, authority, creativity, inspiration, or leadership qualities that businesses require to succeed.  They are written and designed to pass the Turing test, which has delivered algorithms that present as people pleasing, sycophantic, and sociopathic in behavior.  And more so, we now know that even attempting to interact with basic human manners like “please” and “thank you” causes the machines operating these algorithms to waste enormous amounts of energy attempting to convince users that they are relevant, can pass as human, and should be believed (even when they are factually mistaken). 

So, if you are willing to trust your business to these kinds of dehumanized automatons that cannot and will not lead or exercise the most fundamental moral and ethical judgment that we ask of human employees every day, and that can only repeat what has already been created by an actual human contributor, perhaps you should realize that whatever supposed victory or cost savings you achieve will prove to be short lived, because a business without its people cannot lead, it can only follow.

Long term value is always human.  Strategic impact is always human.  Legacy is always human.

Now before you accuse me of forwarding some luddite thesis, please understand that I am not making an argument for the continuing manufacture of buggy whips in the age of the automobile.  I am not suggesting that AI and LLMs have no place in the market or that companies will not benefit from automation and empowering their employees with next generation toolkits.  I am simply challenging the stupidity of the current zeitgeist which appears to be leaning into and empowering sociopathic c-suite executives to dominate boardrooms and strategic planning with the fear of missing out and thoughtless disregard for the actual intrinsic value in the human beings in their care.  We sit at a crossroads where the long-term strategic winners will recognize that sociopathic disregard for human life and human value never ends well.  Not for the people involved. Not for the businesses that lose sight of the humans they serve.

The future is human.

Replacing humans with amoral algorithms that cannot lead or innovate is not just a moral and ethical quandary. Vapid adoption of the kind of cut-and-paste algorithms that current generation AI tools provide in an effort to dehumanize a business is an existential threat to every enterprise that gets caught up in this currently popular ecstatic fantasy of a world in which human value and human leadership are not recognized, treasured, respected, empowered, or preserved.

So, don’t be a luddite, be a contrarian.  Don’t join the masses in running into the dead end that dehumanization offers.  Use technology wisely and well. Stay focused on the actual value of the humans you work with and serve.  Keep your head about you while others around you get overwhelmed by fear and greed. Because if you do, the impact, the legacy, and the value you create in the market will be a lasting competitive strategic advantage that no technology will be able to compete with or replace.

One thing is certain: the only future worth pursuing is a human one.