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.

上月末，中国一家法院裁定，某科技企业在用人工智能软件替代员工后将员工非法辞退，这一判决也向其他雇主发出了隐含的警告。

“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.

“人工智能技术应用旨在解放劳动、提升效率、造福民生，”杭州市中级人民法院在判决书中写道。“劳动法允许用人单位承接技术变革进行更新转型，但亦应顾及保障劳动者的合法权益。”

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.

这已是中国官方第三次公开表态支持因人工智能应用而失业的劳动者的相关胜诉判决，此事凸显出中国正面临的现实难题：既要雄心勃勃地推动人工智能广泛应用，又要应对其可能引发的失业问题，力求在二者之间寻求平衡。

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.

中国已投入数十亿资金，力图打造人工智能强国，并争分夺秒地将该技术融入各行各业。但这一发展愿景正遭遇愈发突出的政治难题：社会普遍担忧，国家推进技术发展，会造成大批劳动者失去工作。

“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.

卡内基国际和平基金会高级研究员马特·希恩表示：“更深层的矛盾在于，一方面要全力推动人工智能渗透实体经济，另一方面又不希望这项技术真正冲击任何就业岗位。”

Governments around the world are wrestling with how A.I. will disrupt labor markets. Officials in Japan, the United Kingdom and South Korea have floated versions of a universal basic income for workers who have been replaced by technology.

世界各国政府都在努力应对人工智能对劳动力市场的冲击。日本、英国和韩国的官员已提出各种版本的全民基本收入计划，旨在帮助那些被技术取代的劳动者。

In China, the debate has become especially acute amid a sluggish economy and persistently high youth unemployment — about 17 percent — that has fueled disillusionment about opportunities for upward mobility. More than 200 million workers have already been pushed into low-paying, demanding jobs in the gig economy.

在中国，随着经济增长乏力、青年失业率居高不下（约17%），关于社会向上流动前景的失望情绪日益加剧，相关社会讨论也变得愈发激烈。已有超2亿劳动者涌入薪资微薄、劳动强度大的零工行业谋生。

Against that broader backdrop of economic anxiety, fears about A.I. technology replacing workers have intensified, especially after a robotaxi in Wuhan struck a pedestrian, Mr. Sheehan said.

希恩表示，在这种普遍的经济焦虑背景下，人们愈发担忧人工智能取代人工，尤其是发生了武汉自动驾驶出租车撞人一事后。

华为昇腾Atlas 900 A3超级集群的1:1实物展示，该集群专为训练和运行大规模人工智能模型打造。

“Despite being an authoritarian country, the Chinese government is actually very attentive to what people are thinking and feeling and saying on the internet, and they feel like they need to respond,” he said.

“尽管中国是威权国家，但政府实际上非常重视民众在网络上的所思所感以及他们在网上的言论，并且认为必须作出回应，”他说。

The trio of court rulings has offered an early glimpse of what that response might look like. In each case, the courts said employers remained responsible for keeping workers on the payroll, even if A.I. had rendered their jobs redundant. Judges have repeatedly ruled that replacing workers with A.I. is voluntary cost-cutting that does not justify mass layoffs.

这三起司法判决已然初步展现出官方的应对思路。在这些案件中，法院均判定，即便人工智能使得部分岗位变得多余，用人单位依旧有责任保留员工在册。法官多次明确，用人工智能取代工人属于自愿性成本削减，不能作为大规模裁员的理由。

Chinese policymakers appear eager for both workers and employers to get the message. The Hangzhou ruling in favor of the tech worker replaced by A.I. was given a special designation signaling that it should serve as a model for future cases.

中国政策制定者显然希望企业与劳动者都能领会这一信息。杭州这起针对被人工智能取代的技术工作者作出的胜诉判决被定为指导性案例，可供后续同类案件参照审理。

In that case, an employee identified in filings only by the pseudonym Zhou had worked as a quality assurance supervisor at an A.I. company until the technology replaced him. When the company offered him a new role that would cut his salary to 15,000 renminbi per month from 25,000, he refused and was fired. The court ruled his employer had failed to properly accommodate him.

该案中，文书中化名周某的员工曾任职于一家人工智能企业，担任质检工作，后续其岗位被人工智能取代。公司提出调岗，将其月薪从2.5万元降至1.5万元，遭周某拒绝后，公司将其辞退。法院最终认定，用人单位未能对员工作出合理安置，此举属于违法辞退。

Jiang Xiaotong, the lawyer who represented Mr. Zhou, said he “not only suffered a blow to their income but also experienced acute professional anxiety, becoming deeply apprehensive about their future career prospects.”

周某的代理律师姜小童表示，周某“不仅收入受到冲击，也产生了明显的职业焦虑，对未来就业发展充满了担忧。”

Mr. Zhou is “middle-aged and faces significant family and financial pressures,” she said. He is one of the midcareer professionals in China struggling to weather a difficult job market that prizes youth.

她介绍，周某“正值中年，家庭和经济压力都比较大”。作为中国众多中年专业人士中的一员，他正努力应对偏好年轻人的艰难就业市场。

Ms. Jiang said the court’s decision to designate the ruling as one that other courts can follow was significant.

姜晓彤认为，法院将该判决指定为其他法院可参照的判例具有重要意义。

“Now that a precedent-setting case has been established, people are far more willing to take up the weapon of the law to defend their legitimate rights and interests,” she said.

她表示：“如今有了典型案例，大家更加愿意拿起法律武器，维护自身正当权益。”

In a similar case in Beijing, an arbitration panel ruled in favor of a map data collector whose entire department was laid off and replaced with artificial intelligence. The panel found that the company’s adoption of A.I. was a voluntary move to remain competitive and did not warrant the employee’s firing.

在北京一起同类案件中，仲裁机构裁定支持一名地图数据采集员，该员工所在的整个部门被裁员，并被人工智能取代。仲裁机构认为，企业引入人工智能是为提升自身竞争力的自愿举措，不能以此为由辞退员工。

Companies that benefit from technology must, at the same time, adopt “social responsibilities” and protect worker rights, the panel ruled.

仲裁意见指出，享受技术发展红利的企业理应承担“社会责任”，保障劳动者合法权益。

机器人与人工智能正在重塑中国的劳动形态，截至2024年，中国工厂中已有超过200万台机器人投入运行。

Government rhetoric around the deployment of A.I. initially stressed the technology’s benefits to workers. Recently, however, official statements and commentaries by state news outlets have begun to acknowledge artificial intelligence as a potentially corrosive force in the job market.

政府关于部署人工智能的论调最初强调了该技术对劳动者的益处。而近期，官方表态以及官媒评论文章开始承认人工智能对就业市场可能造成的侵蚀性影响。

“The government was really pushing this diffusion agenda,” said Ruby Scanlon, a research associate at the Center for a New American Security. “Increasingly, there’s been a lot more rhetoric and nudges and policy documents to the idea of actually creating a backstop for employees.”

“政府此前确实大力推动这项普及议程，”新美国安全中心研究员露比·斯坎伦表示。“如今，越来越多关于为员工建立保障机制的言论、政策引导及文件正在涌现。”

In China, robots and A.I. have already played a disruptive role in two of the nation’s largest employment categories: manufacturing and food delivery.

在中国，机器人与人工智能已经对制造业与外卖配送行业这两个该国最大就业领域造成冲击。

More than two million robots were already working in Chinese factories as of 2024. And in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, Meituan, the nation’s largest food delivery service, has experimented with using small autonomous robots to deliver food. In Shanghai, Meituan delivers over 1,000 meals a day using those robots, according to promotional materials published by Nvidia.

截至2024年，中国工厂投入使用的工业机器人数量已超200万台。在北京、上海、深圳等地，国内最大的外卖平台美团已试点投放小型自主机器人进行送餐。据英伟达发布的宣传资料显示，在上海，美团每日依靠这类机器人配送的订单量超过1000单。

With those changes in mind, China’s Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security announced in January that it would roll out policies to address “the impact of artificial intelligence on jobs,” including “targeted employment support for key industries.”

鉴于这些变化，中国人力资源和社会保障部在今年1月宣布，将出台相关政策应对“人工智能影响促就业”问题，包括“推出重点行业就业支持举措”。

A handful of party officials have proposed sweeping government intervention, such as encouraging employers to offer vocational training to help workers adapt to an A.I.-centric job market. Liu Qingfeng, a tech firm founder and member of the National People’s Congress, has called for a government led “A.I.-unemployment insurance program” to create a safety net for displaced workers.

一些党内官员提议出台全面的政府干预措施，例如鼓励雇主开展职业技能培训，帮助劳动者适应人工智能主导的就业市场。全国人大代表、科技企业创始人刘庆峰呼吁政府主导的“AI失业保险”，为失业人群提供安全网。

For now, though, the focus appears to remain on encouraging companies themselves to hold off on layoffs.

不过现阶段工作的重点似乎仍在于鼓励企业自身暂缓裁员。

“Truly visionary companies will leverage the technological advantages of A.I. to explore new avenues and create new jobs, making technology a driving force for corporate development,” a commentary in March from Xinhua, the state news agency, opined. “Those companies that equate A.I. with ‘reducing staff’ may seem to lower costs in the short term, but in reality, they lose the core competitiveness of talent accumulation and further erode employee trust.”

新华社今年3月发布的评论文章写道：“真正有远见的企业，会借助AI的技术优势开拓新赛道、创造新岗位，让技术成为企业发展的助力。那些把AI等同于‘减人’的企业，看似短期降低了成本，实则失去了人才积累的核心竞争力，更消解了员工对企业的信任感。”