Hong Kong-based mobile and online gaming developer NetDragon announced on Friday, Sept. 2, that it had appointed what the company is touting as the world’s first artificial intelligence (AI)-powered corporate executive.
Named “Ms. Tang Yu,” the AI-powered virtual humanoid robot was given the official designation of Rotating CEO of Fujian NetDragon Websoft, the company’s flagship subsidiary. According to NetDragon, the artificial CEO will be put to task as a real-time data hub and analytical tool to help streamline the company’s daily operations.
“We believe AI is the future of corporate management, and our appointment of Ms. Tang Yu represents our commitment to truly embrace the use of AI to transform the way we operate our business, and ultimately drive our future strategic growth,” NetDragon chairman Dr. Dejian Liu said in a press statement.
“Looking forward, we will continue to expand on our algorithms behind Tang Yu to build an open, interactive and highly transparent management model as we gradually transform to a metaverse-based working community, which will enable us to attract a much broader base of talents worldwide and put us in a position to achieve bigger goals,” Liu added.
While Ms. Yu may be the first instance of a robot put in charge of a company, this isn’t the first time that robots have been put in charge of human relations. In 2014, Japanese tech company Softbank launched its Pepper humanoid robot, which was quickly sold out and put to work as a sales assistant in appliance stores and restaurants across the country. And in 2017, the Protestant Church in Hesse and Nassau, Germany, unveiled BlessU2, a multilingual robot designed to give blessings.
Despite concerns over the possible loss of jobs to AI and robots, futurist Ray Kurzweil told Fortune in 2017 that he is optimistic about the eventual social changes brought about by these technologies: “For every job we eliminate, we’re going to create more jobs at the top of the skill ladder. What new jobs? Well, I don’t know. We haven’t invented them yet.”
