In this tutorial we will learn how to install generative AI on a zombie CEO. Please note this tutorial is for “educational purposes” only. Despite our sarcastic air quotes, this tutorial does “not” endorse killing exploitative CEOs and using their zombie remains to do your every perverted bidding.
Obviously, the first step is to kill your CEO. This is easier said than done, especially with CEOs turning skittish after watching many of their peers become zombies whose speech and motor functions are controlled by AI. And it doesn’t help that some users of this tutorial have been less than discreet once they completed a hostile takeover of their very own CEO.
Yes, Steve, we’re looking at you. Having the CEO of All-American Health Insurance paint his private parts day-glow orange and run naked through the halls of Congress yelling “Who’s your sick daddy?” may have been amusing, but did little to help people.
Anyway, first you need to kill a CEO. Our suggestion is to be both prepared and patient.
Fortunately, CEOs live within strong social hierarchies. While they rose to the top through a mixture of nepotistic connections, generational wealth, and the ability to recite inane buzz words such as “disruption” and “synergy,” their continued existence relies mainly on power and their control over the lives of others. In order to maintain that power and control, CEOs must occasionally interact with those they see as their inferiors.
Yes, tutorial users, that means you.
Previous editions of this tutorial recommended shaking hands with your CEO while wearing invisible, sealed gloves coated in neural-responsive nanobots, aka brain barbecues (for more information, see nanobot schematics attached to tutorial). Upon shaking hands, the nanobots enter the CEO’s body through breaks in the skin or when they touch their nose, mouth or other orifice. The nanobots then replicate and replace the synapses in the CEO’s brain and central nervous system, thus priming your executive for a major life upgrade.
Unfortunately, some people mess things up for everyone. Despite our very clear warnings to carefully strip off and dispose of the invisible gloves if your CEO encounter was delayed, not everyone followed those instructions.
For example, say your CEO chugs five martinis in her office instead of touring her company’s new assembly line, or jets off for a “most dangerous game” hunt instead of attending a press conference to announce he’s laying off 10,000 workers. In such instances, you safely remove your gloves and try again another day. What you absolutely do not do is listen to Steve’s alternate tutorial and keep wearing the damn gloves in the hope that your CEO eventually shows up.
They’re called brain barbecues for a reason. Even the most careful person will eventually forget they’re wearing invisible gloves and touch their eyes, nose, mouth, or private areas. Touching orifices is what humans do many times each hour. Sadly, those who listened to Steve’s tutorial now know this. Or they would if their brains weren’t barbecued.
Instead of shaking your CEO’s hand, we now recommend wearing our Tru-Target system on your clothes (note: downloadable 3D printer instructions attached to tutorial). Tru-Target resembles a brooch or lapel pin. Once a CEO approaches within three feet of you, Tru-Target utilizes facial recognition technology to identify your CEO and launch a pill the size of a grain of sand down their throat, releasing the nanobots.
Fortunately, most CEOs talk more than they listen so Tru-Target will have no trouble aiming for an open mouth. If your CEO is one of the few who actually thinks more than they talk, you may need to say something to anger them. We suggest mentioning how socialism is an inherently better system than crony capitalism, or that your company’s C-Suite offers continuing proof of the Dunning-Kruger effect. This will cause your CEO to rant and scream, presenting wide-open access for Tru-Target.
Once you’ve infected your CEO, allow time for the brain barbecues to do their work. The nanobots will self-replicate as they replace synapses across the CEO’s brain and central nervous system. Meanwhile, the artificial intelligence powered by the nanobots’ conjoined programming will train itself on the CEO’s words, thoughts, memories, and motor functions. Within 48 to 64 hours, the AI will produce a generative model based on what the CEO might do or say in most situations.
You now have your very own zombie CEO to control!
Sadly, it’s at this stage that many of the best-laid plans fall apart. Remember: If you forget the password needed to upload commands to the CEO’s new AI system, there is no password reset option! Stop asking us for this feature. The nanobots can only receive wireless transmissions, not send reminders to people who don’t even bother to use a password manager. We did this to keep law enforcement from easily connecting you with your zombie CEO.
We suspect being brain barbecued without receiving follow-up instructions is what happened to Mark Wally, the CEO of WallyMart and one of the world’s richest men. Or was. The legal aspects of deleting a CEO’s consciousness and replacing it with generative AI are still being debated in court. The AI running Mr. Wally’s mind and body has vigorously defended itself against attempts by his heirs to declare him legally dead. The AI even wrote a book about the situation titled Be the Change You Want to Change. While the book became a bestseller, it was so obviously copied from previous things written and said by Mr. Wally—and so full of clichés, inane mental leaps and wrong conclusions—that a district court judge accepted the book as definitive proof Mark Wally was indeed dead.
Appeals, naturally, are still pending.
We’d love to blame Steve for this screw-up, but Steve at least remembers his passwords. And Steve also knows there’s no true intelligence within generative AI. Instead, the so-called AI powering your CEO uses algorithms and predictive models to make your CEO appear to be the same selfish asshole they were before their mind got nuked. As a bonus, the more unimaginative and unoriginal your CEO, the better the AI mimics their words and actions.
Anyway, it’s at this point you must upload your instructions to your zombie CEO. There are many things you can have your CEO do: Make them pay their employees a living wage. Order them to stop polluting the world. Have them donate their undeserved riches to charity. Or if you’re really ambitious, use your CEO to infect other CEOs with nanobots. Before you know it, you’ll have a very rich and powerful army at your command.
What you absolutely shouldn’t do is a Weekend at Bernie’s rip off. It wasn’t funny the first three times Steve did that, it won’t be funny when you do it.
What’s important to remember is that our world only improves when people take a moral stand for what is right. Sadly, a rich CEO taking a stand always gets more attention and makes a bigger difference than when you or I do the same. Because of that, you might say you’re helping your CEO become a better person through this entire process.
Or, you could say that if you hadn’t barbecued their brain.
Finally, we are going to close by again name-dropping Steve. While we disagree with many of your methods, Steve, we saw what you did at this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos. We still can’t figure out how you inserted nanobots into seven of the world’s most powerful CEOs, who are collectively richer than the combined wealth of almost every other human on Earth.
Steve, when those seven CEOs in their perfectly tailored suits walked in sync onto that elite Davos stage, we recognized your handiwork. We initially feared you were going to do something stupid and embarrassing that would harm our entire movement.
Instead, those CEOs held hands and bowed humbly before both the watching world and that crowded auditorium filled with fellow CEOs, corrupt politicians, sycophants, and influencers. Then, in a single voice, they recited Ursula K. Le Guin famous words:
“We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable—but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words.”
A chill ran our spines at that moment. Seeing that elite crowd glare in outrage at those CEOs gave us hope. Hell, that sight gave people everywhere hope. For one brief moment, you could feel people around the world realizing that the way things are right now is not necessarily the way things must be going forward.
Yes, Steve, we give you credit for that. Well done.
If only you hadn’t followed that inspirational moment by having those CEOs drop their pants and moon the crowd with their orange-painted butts.
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Jason Sanford is an award-winning science fiction and fantasy writer who’s also a passionate advocate for fellow authors, creators, and fans, in particular through reporting in his Genre Grapevine column (for which he's been a finalist multiple times for the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer). He’s also published dozens of stories in magazines such as Apex Magazine, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Interzone, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies along with appearances in various “year’s best” anthologies and The New Voices of Science Fiction. His first novel Plague Birds was a finalist for both the 2022 Nebula Award and the 2022 Philip K. Dick Award. His new novella We Who Hunt Alexanders will be released this month. Born and raised in the American South, Jason’s previous experience includes work as an archaeologist, journalist and a Peace Corps Volunteer.
