Abstract
Recent media reports and press releases have created the impression that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is on the verge of assuming an important role in corporate management. While, upon closer inspection, it turns out that these stories should not always be taken at face value, they clearly highlight AI’s growing importance in management and hint at the enormous changes that corporate leadership may experience in the future. This article attempts to anticipate that future by exploring a thought experiment on corporate management and AI. It argues that it is not an insurmountable step from AI generating and suggesting expert decisions (which is already common today) to AI making these decisions autonomously. The article then proceeds based on the assumption that next-generation AI will be able to take over the management of business organisations and explores the corporate law and governance consequences of this development. In doing so, the article focuses on the fundamental areas of corporate leadership/management structures, managerial liability, and the corporate purpose. It also considers the phenomenon of algorithmic entities and leaderless entities.
Highlights
In 2014, a Hong Kong based venture capital firm, Deep Knowledge Ventures, thrust us into a new age of corporate management
This approach could consist of actions against Artificial Intelligence (AI) operating either in the form of familiar types of organizational legal entities, or AI that in the future might itself be bestowed with a novel legal personality.[202]
A future in which AI takes over corporate management is possible
Summary
In 2014, a Hong Kong based venture capital firm, Deep Knowledge Ventures, thrust us into a new age of corporate management. Several media outlets reacted promptly, with[4] one newspaper even asking its readers whether they would “take orders from a robot.”[5] In the case of VITAL, it turned out that initial reports were technically incorrect, given that Hong Kong law does not allow non-human entities to serve on boards.[6] The phenomenon was exaggerated, as Deep Knowledge Ventures later acknowledged that VITAL’s role “was a little different from that of human directors,” noting that the firm treats the software “as a member of our board with observer status” on the basis of an agreement that the board “would not make positive investment decisions without nordic-company-to-appoint-artificial-intelligence-to-the-leadership-teamof-the-new [https://perma.cc/3C59-4YTA] His Weekly Staff Meeting, CNBC (Jan. 25, 2018), https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/25/davos-2018-ai-machine-called-einsteinattends-salesforce-meetings.html [https://perma.cc/9CN9-Y6TV]. As an alternative to fault liability, this system could allow for strict liability against software developers and providers
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