Chinese game development company (NetDragon Websoft) announced the appointment of Ms. (Tang Yu) Tang Yu as CEO in August last year. Since then, the company has achieved excellent performance on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The company's shares have risen 10% in a period of six months. Annual sales in the past amounted to $ 2.1 billion, according to (Google Finance).
Tang Yu's performance exceeded all expectations and he was able to oversee tasks such as risk assessment, decision making, work environment improvement, and productivity increase.
but there is a problem:
Tang Yu's success in NetDragon caused everyone to question her qualifications and experience, but the answer was that she had none. Because it is not a human being but a virtual robot with artificial intelligence!
Artificial intelligence and the threat to jobs:
With the recent developments in artificial intelligence tools, there have been numerous reports of a massive exodus of workers, with McKinsey Global Research predicting that 45 million workers, or about 28% of the American workforce, will lose their jobs. through intelligence. artificially by 2030.
All the reports that have surfaced focus on the threat of AI being restricted to workers and workers in jobs that require minimal physical labor and skills such as) owners such as accountants and managers can rest assured that job-level machines are not yet to their work.
But the generative AI revolution we've seen recently; A new idea has emerged and a major threat threatens employees such as: accountants, journalists, writers, programmers, and executives at the top of the industry chain are constantly thinking about AI. Replace employees smartly to reduce costs! But NetDragon's experience and results show that they are also under threat.
What if we replace the CEO with an employee?
The most important reason for replacing employees with artificial intelligence is usually to reduce costs and increase efficiency, but the report shows that the average annual salary of CEOs (Fortune 500) for Americans amounted to $ 16 million, which is the salary of CEOs. It means the equivalent of 399 workers. Wages!
In large companies, this ratio is usually much higher; Example: In 2021, the total salary of Amazon CEO (Andy Jassy) is $213 million, which is the salary of 6,474 Amazon employees, which is enough to operate 4 large companies from Amazon to Amazon.
Most economists who have studied CEO salaries have concluded that CEOs are overpaid, which means they earn significantly more than their measures of productivity.
Research indicates that there may be an inverse relationship between CEO salaries and long-term company performance. A study that analyzed CEO compensation at 400 companies between 2006 and 2015 found that:
- A $100 investment can add up to $265 for the 20% of companies with the highest CEO pay.
- For the 20% of companies with the lowest paying CEO, the investment went from $100 to $367.
The reason for these results is that executive bonus structures lead CEOs to seek short-term profits rather than long-term meaningful growth, as most CEO salaries are based on improved metrics such as earnings per share, which can be improved through strategies such as buybacks. manipulate b. Store. The result is that even when CEOs run underperforming companies, they often reward handsomely.
new ideas:
So instead of laying off hundreds of the company's permanent employees, the savings could be limited to firing the CEO to cut costs.
But the biggest advantage of human CEOs is their ability to manipulate and persuade, which gives them a good chance of convincing investors that the idea of replacing them with machines is crazy.
Founded in 1999, NetDragon has successively developed many multiplayer online games such as "Evil World", "Hero Evolution" and "Conquer" and has become the No. 1 online game portal in China (www.17173.com).
Although it may be the first company to hire a robot as CEO, Alibaba founder Jack Ma predicted in 2017 that a robot could make the cover of Time Magazine's Best CEO within 30 years. He warns that the Dark Ages are approaching for those unprepared for the disruptions that technology will cause.
Margarita Lin, an economist at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, told The Hustle: "I have a feeling that the CEO job will be the last job that can be replaced by AI because the root of a CEO's professional job cannot be emulated with AI, the connection between people and the connection with the public." Negotiation is something that AI cannot do yet.
This does not mean that many CEO tasks cannot be automated, as the McKinsey Institute estimates that CEOs spend about 25% of their time on tasks that could be performed by machines or artificial intelligence, such as: checking financial results, sending emails and forecasting directions.
In addition, employees are not entirely opposed to firing the CEO:
- A 2019 survey found that 30% of employees would be happy if their CEO was replaced by a robot.
- In a survey conducted by The Hustle, 40% of respondents said they think a CEO should be a bot.
So if NetDragon CEO Tang Yu's robot can continue to outperform the market as it has in six months, then the prediction that artificial intelligence will replace the CEO may not be far-fetched.