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Last year, during the month of August, the Chinese company NetDragon Websoft, specialized in multiplayer games and mobile applications, appointed as CEO (or executive director) an artificial intelligence in one of its main subsidiaries, Fujian NetDragon Websoft. Six months later, the management of this AI made the company grow by 10% on the stock market.

Artificial intelligence and especially ChatGPT are coming to produce a type of anxiety, 'AI-nxiety', which is leading thousands of people to think that this technology will replace thousands of jobs of all kinds. Something like Henry Ford's assembly line, but on a large scale. Statements such as that of the World Economic Forum, which in 2020 predicted that approximately 85 million jobs could be displaced by 2025, acknowledging that automation in the workforce has increased at a faster rate than anticipated, are far from reassuring. While at first it was assumed that the heaviest and most mechanical jobs would be automated, ChatGPT, Midjourney, DALL-E or Stable Diffusion came to demonstrate that the arts, literature and even programming are also a matter of machines.

Now, the artificial intelligence Tang Yu, the CEO appointed by NetDragon, comes to scare senior officials since in its first six months of management, it has managed to increase 10% in the Hong Kong stock market raising the value of the company, they are even surpassing the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in general, according to data shown in The Hustle.

Although the issue of AIs in positions of power comes from afar. Already in 2018, a robot ran for mayor of a Tokyo district to crack down on corruption. In fact, this robot, named Michihito Matsuda, managed to come in third place with 4,013 votes. A scenario that already anticipated the anime series 'Evangelion', where decision-making falls on MAGI, a superintelligence that rules Tokyo-3.

"We believe AI is the future of corporate governance, and our appointment of Ms. Tang Yu represents our commitment to truly embrace the use of artificial intelligence to transform the way we operate our business and ultimately drive our future strategic growth," said NetDragon President Dejian Liu. in a press release last August.

"We will continue to expand our algorithms behind Tang Yu to build an open, interactive and highly transparent management model, as we gradually transform into a metaverse-based working community, allowing us to attract a much wider base of talent around the world and putting us in a position to achieve larger goals," add in the document.

Impeccable leadership at zero cost

At NetDragon, whose annual revenue is close to $2.100 billion (around €1.950 billion), AI Tang Yu is responsible for all the typical functions of a company figurehead, reviewing high-level analysis, making leadership decisions, assessing risks and fostering an efficient workplace.

The difference is that she does not need to rest, has no family to attend or gets sick, works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, does not need to sleep, eat, or a coffee break and also her salary has nothing to do with the fees that usually charge the equivalent charges. Tang Yu receives zero euros per year gross for his work.

Keep in mind that in 'Fortune 500' companies (the five hundred largest American companies) the average salary of CEOs is now around 16 million dollars per year (more than 14 million euros). In fact, over the past 45 years, the average salary of CEOs has increased by 1,460% while that of workers has only increased by 18%. The result is that a CEO receives on average the equivalent of 399 workers.

The bigger the company, the higher this difference. For example, in 2021, Amazon CEO Andy Jassey received a package worth 213 million dollars (more than 197 million euros), equivalent to the collective salary of some 6,474 Amazon employees. A salary force that will be enough to fully manage four logistics centers of the company. Tang Yu's successful management for now is unique, but who knows if when accounting for the cost of maintaining high human positions, other large companies will choose to imitate the NetDragon model.

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  • Hong Kong
  • Artificial intelligence