The fruits of efficiency and how to measure trust
Nokia has announced 253 job cuts as it expands its AI strategy, and HSBC is using AI-related job cuts as the basis for its undervalued stock price argument. Companies have begun to incorporate AI-driven efficiencies directly into headcount and revenue calculations. However, as I read through this half-day's material, what draws attention is not so much the reduction figures themselves, but the lines that lie before them. An AI that makes phone calls to elderly people every day, an AI that exceeds the accuracy of doctors by reading videos of breast ultrasounds, and an AI that says "I don't know" on its own. How much of human work, intimate relationships, diagnosis, and judgment will be entrusted to AI, and who will measure its suitability and by what criteria? Each of the following passages shows, from a different perspective, that there is no fixed way to measure it.
Nokia plans to cut 253 jobs as it expands its AI strategy, and the stock price is valued at 9.33 euros (ad-hoc-news.de). Regarding HSBC, there is talk that the company's stock price may be 39% undervalued due to AI-driven workforce reductions (Yahoo Finance). What they all have in common is that reductions in personnel are listed directly as a material for constructing evaluations for investors. The results of introducing AI are beginning to be seen primarily in the numbers of reductions in labor costs, rather than the performance of the technology.
On the other hand, the scale of reductions varies. Nokia's 253 employees is a small number in isolation, but when combined with the company's expansion of its AI strategy, it comes into context when discussing stock prices. At HSBC, the reduction itself is the basis for the argument that it is undervalued. In both cases, the fact that the company will reduce headcount is treated as an assumption supporting the earnings outlook. When readers read a company's announcement, they need to look not at the number of people being cut, but how it relates to their evaluations.
Opposite pressures have also been reported from the profit side. The Korea Daily reported that smart agents will put 100 trillion won in bank profits at risk. The view is that AI will not only make banks' operations more efficient, but will also take away the very profits that banks have earned. While the article on HSBC uses cost reduction as a factor in its evaluation, this article is wary of a decline in profits. Even within the same industry, AI is sometimes seen as a tool to lower costs, and sometimes as a threat to revenue sources.
