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How China is trying to prevent AI from becoming a 'machine that shoots people'
2026-05-13 18:03:14 / BOTA
Chinese courts have begun issuing rulings that protect workers from being fired for using artificial intelligence (AI), limiting the arbitrariness of employers.
At least two decisions are known to the general public that show that the use of VI is a business choice and not an unforeseeable circumstance that justifies termination of employment.
A judge in Hangzhou has ordered the termination of the contract of an employee whose job was replaced by models with strong language. The Transitional People's Court of this eastern Chinese city ruled that the dismissal was illegal. Previously, the company tried to replace him with VI after demoting him and cutting his salary by 40 percent, El Pais reports.
It is the job of the “quality assurance supervisor for VI models”.
The senior technician's role involved reviewing discrepancies produced by large language models, such as ChatGPT or Gemini, to ensure accurate results. Among other tasks, he matched user queries with VI systems and filtered out illegal or potentially privacy-infringing content, according to a case file cited by Xinhua news agency. Over time, VI took over these tasks.
In January 2025, the company proposed moving Zhou to a lower position, which would have meant a salary cut from 25,000 yuan per month to 15,000 yuan, or from about 3,200 euros to 1,900 euros. When Zhou refused, the company terminated his contract, citing internal reorganization and staff reductions. Zhou filed an arbitration claim seeking more compensation and won the dispute.
The company took the case to the first-instance court and, after losing, appealed to the intermediate court. The firm claimed that advances in artificial intelligence had transformed the project Zhou was working on and that her functions could be performed by the technology itself. Legally, it tried to use a clause in China’s labor contract law that allows for termination of a contract when there is a “significant change in objective circumstances” that makes it impossible to continue the work.
The court rejected that argument, noting that the concept usually applies to events such as relocations, mergers or structural changes within a company, not to a voluntary decision to cut costs. Speaking to state broadcaster CCTV, judge Shi Guoqiang of the court said that companies cannot terminate the contract based on the argument that technology had replaced human labor.
According to the decision that deemed the dismissal illegal, the company will have to pay him compensation of 260,000 yuan, which is approximately 33,000 euros.
The Hangzhou case is not an isolated incident.
As previously reported by the media, two years ago the Guangzhou Interim Court investigated a similar case in which the position was filled with artificial intelligence. It concerns the manual input of map data at a technology company.
In early 2024, the company replaced all manual work with artificial intelligence tools, closed Liu's department, and terminated his employment, again claiming that this was due to unexpected changes. However, the court concluded that the technological improvement that the company declared itself could not be considered an "objective circumstance" justifying the unilateral termination of the contract.
It was also said that choosing automation is a normal business decision and that any job losses due to this choice are a risk that must be borne by the employer, not the workers.
In the US, the rules are completely different. There, one of the largest companies, Amazon, after laying off 14,000 people in 2025, in January announced the layoff of another 16,000. Oracle has laid off between 20,000 and 30,000 employees, and the IT company Block, which is behind the Square, Cash App and Afterpay applications, is reducing the number of employees by 40 percent, that is, about 4,000.
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