She specifically said that the new tech would "increase" and "turbocharge" fraud. She did not use that example as some new kind of fraud, only that it could be done more effectively or more easily.

There's an important thing that the CEO provides that no AI can: the acceptance of risk.

On a day-to-day basis the CEO makes decisions, ignores expert advice, knocks off early for tee time, etc. For this work they are wildly overpaid and could easily be replaced by having their responsibilities divvied up amongst a small group of people in leadership roles.

To see the true purpose of the CEO we need to look at a bigger scale - the quarter-to-quarter scale. What could be bigger than that in the world of the MBA?

Every quarter the CEO must have the company meet the financial performance expectations of the board/owner(s)/shareholders. Failure is likely to result in them losing their job and getting a reputation as an underperformer, thus ruining their career. If the company does poorly or those expectations are unreasonably high then the CEO must cut corners in the operation. This of course hampers their ability to meet expectations later, but they'll make it through this quarter.

When (inevitably) too many corners have been cut something catastrophic will happen. Either the company's reputation will go to shit with customers slowly, or a high-profile scandal will blow up in the company's face.

This is the moment when the CEO provides their most valuable service: to fall (or be pushed) onto their sword. The CEO is fired, ousted, or resigns. This allows the board/owner/shareholders to get a new face in and demand that they fix the most egregious issues, or at least the most glaring ones that don't cost too much to fix.

This service cannot be provided by an AI. Why? Because the AI is a creation of the company. If it is used as a scapegoat it solves nothing. The company is pointing at their own creation and saying "see, that's the problem". It's much more effective to point at a human they didn't make and scream that that person made a mistake.

It is, but teenagers and the emotionally stunted fall into it so they can feel superior.

It's basically a diet conspiracy theory. It lets adherents think they're special and have figured something out that regular people didn't. That's a lot more comforting than realizing they're just regular people because they aren't mature enough to see obscurity as a good thing.

Jesus, that ending was brutal.

I was told that ooh heaven is a place on Earth.

It's even simpler than that. The author sets the rules of the world. If those rules change, are ignored, or characters behave in a way that disagrees with the rules the reader's trust is betrayed.

That's why people get a stick up their ass about plot holes. They were told things work a certain way, but characters miss an obvious opportunity or break an already established rule. Lack of effort on the author's part makes the reader feel like their time hasn't been respected.

I came here for a sensible chuckle, not to have my fucking mind blown.

Wait, you're telling me that reinvesting in the business instead of increasing dividends and executive pay increases profits in the long term?

Preposterous!

Yeah, two four day weeks a month was some pretty big context to leave out.

Alimony is off the table when infidelity can be proved in court. This was the case even when alimony was super common back in the 80s and 90s.

If you were a homemaker seeking divorce you could get alimony without being a perfect person, but infidelity was one of the few instant "no"s in divorce court.

And the amount of propaganda everywhere else, for that matter.

That is the intention of the acronym, yes.