Recently The New York Times reported the following:
China Wants A.I. to Flourish, but Not at the Expense of
Jobs (1/2)
A series of precedent-setting rulings signals that
Chinese courts are being enlisted to shield workers from displacement by
artificial intelligence.
The NYT - By Catie Edmondson - Reporting from Seoul
May 19, 2026
Updated 10:45 a.m. ET
When a Chinese court ruled late last month that a tech
company had illegally laid off a worker after replacing him with artificial
intelligence software, it delivered an implicit warning to other employers.
The case — the third time the Chinese government has highlighted a ruling siding with workers displaced by A.I. — underscores how Beijing is contending with the need to balance its ambitions for the widespread use of A.I. with the unemployment that might accompany it.
China has invested billions to become an artificial intelligence superpower and raced to integrate the technology across a broad range of industries. But those aspirations have run headlong into a growing political problem: anxiety over the workers who could be displaced by the realization of Beijing’s technological drive.
“The deeper tension is between this all-out push for A.I.
diffusion into the economy, and wanting that to not actually impact any jobs,”
said Matt Sheehan, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace.
Governments around the world are wrestling with how A.I. will disrupt labor markets. Officials in Japan, the United Kingdom and South Korea have floated versions of a universal basic income for workers who have been replaced by technology.
In China, the debate has become especially acute amid a sluggish economy and persistently high youth unemployment — about 17 percent — that has fueled disillusionment about opportunities for upward mobility. More than 200 million workers have already been pushed into low-paying, demanding jobs in the gig economy.
Against that broader backdrop of economic anxiety, fears about A.I. technology replacing workers have intensified, especially after a robotaxi in Wuhan struck a pedestrian, Mr. Sheehan said.
“Despite being an authoritarian country, the Chinese government is actually very attentive to what people are thinking and feeling and saying on the internet, and they feel like they need to respond,” he said.
The trio of court rulings has offered an early glimpse of what that response might look like. In each case, the courts said employers remained responsible for keeping workers on the payroll, even if A.I. had rendered their jobs redundant. Judges have repeatedly ruled that replacing workers with A.I. is voluntary cost-cutting that does not justify mass layoffs.
Chinese policymakers appear eager for both workers and employers to get the message. The Hangzhou ruling in favor of the tech worker replaced by A.I. was given a special designation signaling that it should serve as a model for future cases.
In that case, an employee identified in filings only by the pseudonym Zhou had worked as a quality assurance supervisor at an A.I. company until the technology replaced him. When the company offered him a new role that would cut his salary to 15,000 renminbi per month from 25,000, he refused and was fired. The court ruled his employer had failed to properly accommodate him.
Jiang Xiaotong, the lawyer who represented Mr. Zhou, said he “not only suffered a blow to their income but also experienced acute professional anxiety, becoming deeply apprehensive about their future career prospects.”
Mr. Zhou is “middle-aged and faces significant family and financial pressures,” she said. He is one of the midcareer professionals in China struggling to weather a difficult job market that prizes youth.
Ms. Jiang said the court’s decision to designate the ruling as one that other courts can follow was significant.
“Now that a precedent-setting case has been established, people are far more willing to take up the weapon of the law to defend their legitimate rights and interests,” she said.
(to be continued)
Translation
中國希望人工智能蓬勃發展，但不能以犧牲就業為代價（1/2）
一系列具有里程碑意義的判決表明，中國法院正在被用來保護工人免受人工智能取代
上月底，中國法院裁定一家科技公司用人工智能軟體取代一名工人後非法解僱他，這項判決對其他雇主發出了一個潛在的警告。
杭州市中級人民法院在判決書中寫道：“人工智能技術的發展應當服務於解放勞動、促進就業、改善民生”; ”勞動法允許雇主進行技術改造和升級，但同時也應當顧及保護勞動者的合法權益。”
這單案件 - 中國政府第三次強調一項有利於勞動者因人工智能而失業的裁決 - 凸顯了北京如何平衡其廣泛應用人工智能的雄心壯志與可能隨之而來的失業問題。
中國已投入數十億美元成為人工智能超級大國，並競相將這項技術融入各行業。但這些雄心壯志卻遭遇了一個日益嚴重的政治難題：人們擔心北京的技術擴張會導致工人失業。
卡內基國際和平基金會高級研究員Matt
Sheehan說: “更深層的矛盾在於，一方面要全力推動人工智能向經濟領域普及，另一方面又不希望它真正影響到任何就業崗位。”
世界各國政府都在努力應對人工智能將如何顛覆勞動市場的問題。日本、英國和韓國的官員都提出了為被科技取代的工人提供全民基本收入的方案。
在中國，由於經濟成長乏力，青年失業率居高不下（約17%），這場辯論變得特別激烈，加劇了人們對向上流動機會的失望。超過2億勞工已被推入低薪、高要求而無合約臨時就業經濟中。
Sheehan表示，在更廣泛的經濟焦慮背景下，人們對人工智能技術取代工人的擔憂加劇，尤其是在武漢發生無人駕駛計程車撞人事故之後。
他說：“儘管中國政府是一個威權國家，但它實際上非常關注人們在網路上的想法、感受和言論，並且覺得有必要做出回應。”
這三項法院判決初步展現了這種回應可能的形式。在每單案件中，法院都表示，即使人工智能使某些工作變得多餘，雇主仍有責任繼續支付員工薪水。法官們一再裁定，用人工智能取代工人屬於公司自己削減成本，並不成為大規模裁員的理由。
中國政策制定者似乎急於讓員工和雇主都明白這一點。杭州在，一位被人工智能取代的科技工作者獲勝訴一案，被特別指定為未來類似案件的典範。
在該案中，一名在訴訟文件中僅以周某為代名的員工，曾在一家人工智能公司擔任品質保證主管，直到被人工智能取代。當公司提出給他一份新工作，將他的月薪從2.5萬元人民幣降至1.5萬元時，他拒絕了，並被解僱。法院裁定，他的雇主未能妥善安排他。
周先生的代理律師Jiang Xiaotong表示，周某「不僅收入銳減，還經歷了嚴重的職業焦慮，對未來的職業前景深感擔憂」。
Jiang說，周先生「已步入中年，面臨巨大的家庭和經濟壓力」。他是中國眾多中年專業人士中的一員，努力應對以年輕人為重的嚴峻就業市場。
Jiang表示，法院將此案的判決指定為其他法院可以效法的先例，意義重大。
她又說：“如今，有了具有里程碑意義的判例，人們更願意運用法律手段捍衛自身的合法權益。”
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