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 development of artificial intelligence technology should be applied to liberating labor, promoting employment and improving people’s livelihood,” the Hangzhou Intermediate People’s Court wrote. “Labor law allows employers to undertake technological changes and upgrade their operations, but it should also take into account the protection of workers’ legitimate rights and interests.
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 Officials in Japan, Britain and South Korea have floated versions of a universal basic income for workers who have been replaced by technology.
