If a Robot can fly a plane can it run a company?

At first this sounds like a completely ridiculous statement until you start studying when software and hardware can presently do. If you actually study what they can do you have to come to the conclusion that we aren't really far away from someone setting up a company to be run by simply software and hardware and having information systems and robotic equipment do the rest.

What type of company would that be?

The most likely type of company most closely resembles something like amazon.com    . So I likely would say Amazon or some company run like this one would be the first to be completely run by robotic equipment and information technology. The one thing presently that couldn't be done would be deliveries of products that presently would be done by a service like: UPS, Federal Express, or other worldwide delivery services. However, eventually even that likely could be done by self driving vehicles as well with robotic walker delivery persons to people's front doors worldwide.

Since the 1980s in military aircraft and the 1990s in passenger aircraft, planes have been designed to be taken off, flown and landed from the ground even if no one was on board. Or, (more likely) they would be flown in the air and landed because of catastrophic decompression above 20,000 or 30,000 feet when everyone on board was either dead from it or passed out from the explosive decompression of the aircraft at that altitude. So, even if a few people might have fallen out or been sucked out of the aircraft, the aircraft could easily be flown and landed from the ground to avoid crashing into cities and human residences and businesses on the ground and causing a lot of mayhem.

Another (more secret) reason for doing this is that all passenger aircraft could be turned into weapons of war in times of national emergency. Imagine all passenger jets of the U.S. filled with explosives and heading towards a potential enemy country. Though in today's world this seems very unlikely with the United Nations in place, still it is a possibility if times are difficult here on earth.

But, like I said it is very very very unlikely because of nuclear weapons and mutually assured complete destruction of the Earth itself and all life upon it.

But yes, the short answer is a supercomputer likely could run a company quite effectively if the business was a globalized business run in a similar way to amazon.com and could hire outside private contractors for advertising and shipping and receiving. So, one man or woman could own such a company that was world known for what it was without even visiting the office once after it got going.

But people would have to be hired in building new warehouses to set up robotics in place to run this company. And whenever upgrades were necessary people would be needed to do the upgrades for now.

The fact that this is now possible should worry people who are high school graduates with no college worldwide. Because this now is the whole world's problem and not just a problem for the U.S. , Europe and China and similar countries anymore.

Also, you would need human security officers to protect goods and robotics and small computers as well as mainframes and supercomputers from theft or vandalism until robotic security was available and legal at some future time.

Though all this could be done many people are aware of how to outsmart almost any computer or even supercomputer. So, the competition likely would try to do this. So, likely there would need to be strategists above the supercomputer CEO in protecting the company from the competition in order for this to actually work ongoing.

But, like I said it is completely possible to own a company where no one is working for that company but could also be a globalized company with the above parameters as long as all needs of a company were met in some way through outside contracting for shipping (both ways) and for security and for strategy above the supercomputer CEO of the company. So, though such a company would be owned by a person (or stocks on the stock exchange) the whole company except for strategy, shipping and security and advertising might be conducted 24 hours a day every day of the year with no actual employees other than those contracted from the outside for various needed purposes to conduct a business 24 hours a day 365 days a year. Such a company likely could outcompete all comers worldwide if organized properly and reorganized technically ongoing as needed.

later: Just like with self driving cars likely legally you are going to need a licensed human driver in most states to be allowed to have the thing on the road,  you likely would legally need a  (human CEO) to be allowed to run a company. So, even though realistically a supercomputer could do it, legally you likely might need something else.

So, maybe the artful way to do this would be to have an HCEO (human CEO) and an AICEO (Artificial intelligence CEO).

Because you are definitely going to need a human strategist for the company along with an AICEO if you want to be the first on your block to try something like this. So, if this is an interesting and beneficial thing to do someone likely is going to try this on first a small company and if it works move on up to a larger company etc.

Also, the CIO (Information Officer) would be slightly different in this kind of operation so that in a small company the CIO and the HCEO likely could be the same person if they can (wear enough hats).

So, likely the first place you would see this is on a university campus as an experiment for  graduate students for a new business model incorporating a supercomputer in a business model as an AICEO alongside a HCEO or Strategist.

Question: How would you begin training a Supercomputer to be an AICEO?

You would start with how Watson was programmed to win at Jeapordy.

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Then you would program a supercomputer to sort literally all articles regarding objects or things that it would sell in it's company. The supercomputer would do this 24 hours a day ongoing, spitting out reports to human strategists who would refine this information regarding literally all trends and facts regarding this business worldwide 24 hours a day. By using this trending information as to what people are buying and what they are saying they want to buy, you then program your supercomputer to also research what is being said on all social medias worldwide in ANY language to find out what people are interested in buying and in what they want to buy. What are people the most excited about talking about and could that be made better or cheaper by your company and more desirable?

With this being done 24 hours a day questions and parameters could be added to this supercomputer to allow for any new ideas or variables that might become useful to know about over time. Graphs on trends, what is being bought by who around the world could be quantified daily, weekly, monthly or yearly, and production lines and product lines would echo what people want around the world ongoing by the moment within the automated warehouses worldwide.

Without the necessity of storefronts these warehouse driven products so reduce expenses in every way that no one could ever compete seriously with this business unless they also used similar methods.

Also, allowing the supercomputer, (like Watson on Jeapordy) to make actual decisions through  voice actuated  speaking before a human board of directors of a company, amazing things could get done in such a timely way that literally no company could compete with this kind of teamwork unless they used similar methods.