GROWING UNEASE OVER AI
The dispute comes amid growing public unease in China over the impact of AI on employment, particularly in labour-intensive industries.
Beijing has vowed to safeguard jobs and boost hiring as it seeks to accelerate AI adoption, as mounting economic, demographic and AI-driven pressures weigh heavily on the country’s labour market.
On the Sina Weibo microblogging site, debate erupted over the impact of AI on jobs – with some users accusing the company of prioritising profits over workers’ livelihoods.
“This is so ironic coming from a company that has benefited greatly from working-class people,” said a Weibo user going by the handle Black Dragon. “It is purely unethical.”
One hashtag attracted more than 120 million views as of Wednesday, with some users threatening to boycott Lao Gan Ma products.
“If you lay off workers, we will pull products from the shelves,” wrote a Weibo user by the handle Xin Ma28.
While some defended the company’s adoption of AI, saying that automation was a “necessary part of industrial modernisation” that could “improve food safety, quality and productivity”, others questioned the wider consequences of replacing human workers with machines.
“If everything is done by AI and robots, and people have no jobs or income, they won’t be able to afford to consume,” read one highly upvoted Weibo comment. “What’s the point of producing so much, then?”