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Under China’s “AI Plus” initiative and its five-year plan through 2030, the government is pushing to infuse AI across many industries.
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“What is specific to China is that the government is really into diffusing AI across the economy, so AI may get into different domains more quickly comparing to other countries,” said Zilan Qian, a research associate at Oxford China Policy Lab.
China’s economic growth has already been slowing. Consumer spending has lagged partly due to people becoming reluctant to spend because they’re worried about losing their jobs. It’s added to problems stemming from a prolonged downturn in the housing market that has undermined household wealth.
China’s tech industries may be innovative with high productivity, but they may not generate many new jobs, said Eswar Prasad, a professor of economics and trade policy at Cornell University.
“AI is likely to lift productivity across the board but could have a severe disruptive effect on employment, worsening the employment growth problem and resulting in a detrimental effect on social stability,” he said.
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Chinese Court Rules Replacing Workers With AI Is Illegal at DuckDuckGo
https://ai2.work/blog/chinese-court-rules-replacing-workers-with-ai-is-illegal
In a ruling published just ahead of International Workers’ Day, the Hangzhou Intermediate People’s Court in eastern China has declared that firing an employee to replace them with artificial intelligence constitutes an unlawful termination. The landmark decision, upheld on appeal, sends a powerful signal to companies racing to automate: the costs of technological transformation cannot be dumped onto workers.
The case centers on a quality assurance supervisor identified only by his surname Zhou, who earned 25,000 yuan ($3,640) per month at an AI tech company. After his role was absorbed by large language models, the company offered him a demotion with a 40% pay cut — from 300,000 yuan to roughly 180,000 yuan annually. When Zhou refused, the company terminated his contract. He fought back through arbitration, won, and then won again in two successive court battles.
Obviously the better AI gets, the more workers it can replace. I’ll be curious how China handles this. Generally they have the best AI regulations worldwide. And the neoliberal era is coming to an end, with it finally getting so bad as to strangle demand because nobody has any money any more. Ideally we start going to 30 then 20 hour work weeks with no reduction in standards of living. More free time is the greatest luxury you can have after all.
Generally they [China] have the best AI regulations worldwide.
This is pure propaganda by the Chinese Communist Party. Workers’ rights in China are among the weakest globally, and we see this at the moment in Chinese labour market.
The Chinese ruling you are referring to in you comment doesn’t forbid companies from using AI to automate certain roles held by humans, as stated by experts such as Moshe Lander, an economics professor at Canadian Concordia University,
Workers, the ruling says, “should also understand the strategic development needs of enterprises, continuously update and improve their professional skills through continuous learning, proactively adapt to the changes in artificial intelligence technology, promote the efficient application of AI technology in production practices, and foster a win-win situation of personal career growth and efficient enterprise development.”
Lander said the ruling, which was issued ahead of China’s Labour Day on May 1, was likely a messaging and “self-preservation” exercise for the ruling Chinese Communist Party given the potential widespread impact of AI-led labour disruptions.
This is pure propaganda by the Chinese Communist Party
The ccp is really working towards a revolution considering how bad the economy is and unemployment.