By Joe Wilkins
Publication Date: 2026-05-02 18:01:00
While workers in the Western world ponder what appears to be an impending job apocalypse, their Chinese colleagues are winning fierce legal battles against AI automation.
Last week, the state agency said Xinhua News AgencyA Chinese court ruled that companies cannot use AI as an excuse to fire employees. The case involved a quality assurance manager, identified only by his last name, Zhou, who was hired in 2022 to oversee a technology company’s AI performance. When his bosses tried to replace him with a large language model (LLM) in 2025, they offered him a demotion with a 40 percent pay cut.
Unsurprisingly, Zhou refused – so the company fired him and offered him a severance package worth around $45,000. Zhou was dissatisfied with the rather meager payout and challenged the severance offer before a state arbitration tribunal.
After that panel ruled in Zhou’s favor on the grounds that the dismissal was unlawful, the company filed a lawsuit in a lower court, presumably the district-level elementary school…
