Scared AI will replace your job? A Chinese court is on your side.
In a ruling released at the end of last month as part of a series of AI-related cases, the Hangzhou Intermediate People’s Court in eastern China’s Zhejiang province ordered a fintech company to pay a former worker more than 260,000 yuan (roughly $38,000) in compensation after it replaced his role with AI.
The employee, surnamed Zhou, had worked as a quality inspection supervisor for an AI model at the company, where his role was to review, evaluate, and ensure accuracy in the model’s user interaction responses.
In early 2025, amid the domestic AI frenzy sparked by the introduction of the Hangzhou-developed large language model DeepSeek, the company proposed reassigning Zhou to a lower-level operational role and reducing his monthly salary from 25,000 yuan to 15,000 yuan. When Zhou rejected the terms, the company terminated his employment contract.
Later, during arbitration proceedings, Zhou learned that the company’s rationale for his reassignment and salary downgrade was that his work had allegedly been rendered redundant because AI could perform his quality inspection duties.
