Just in time for Labour Day, China makes it illegal to fire humans if AI takes their jobs

A Chinese court has ruled that it’s illegal to replace human workers with AI.

China’s State Council, the nation’s highest executive and administrative authority, saw fit to publish a state media report about the case, which saw the Hangzhou Intermediate People's Court consider the case of a worker who was hired for duties including “matching user queries with large language models and filtering illegal or privacy-violating content, among others, to ensure accurate output by AI models.”

The worker’s employer started using AI for some of that work and offered the employee a demotion and reduced salary.

The worker, identified only by their surname Zhou, challenged that decision and won.

According to the report shared by the State Council, the case established the legal principle that using AI to perform a worker’s job does not automatically justify terminating a contract.

The State Council shared news ...