From news anchors to company employees, AI-powered virtual humans have quickly taken over human posts in China. In December 2021, China’s property giant Vanke said its employee of the year was not a human. According to The Paper, a Chinese state-owned media, the company declared an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered debt collector named “Cui Xiaopan” as its employee of the year. The virtual employee was created by Vanke’s in-house team using the Xiaoice Framework, an AI system developed by Microsoft Asia. At first glance, Cui is depicted as a beautiful young professional in her 20s who joined Vanke’s accounting department in February 2021 and is the recipient of the company’s Best Newcomer Award. “Supported by systematic algorithms, [Cui] quickly learned the human methods in discovering problems in data and work procedures. The skills she displayed has proven to be hundreds of thousands of times more efficient than humans,” Yu Liang, chairman …