“It feels like Squid Game”: China’s workers scramble to keep up in the AI race

Earlier this month, nearly a thousand people lined up outside TencentiTencentBest known for its super-app WeChat, Tencent is a Chinese technology conglomerate and a major player in the video gaming industry.READ MORE’s headquarters in Shenzhen to get a piece of software installed on their devices.

The crowd — which included students, retirees, and general office workers — wanted to get access to the much-hyped OpenClaw, an open-source artificial intelligence agent built by Austrian programmer Peter Steinberger.

The frenzy around OpenClaw in China — dubbed “raising a lobster,” referring to the AI agent’s red logo — captured a deeper fear among workers: Tools meant to boost productivity could soon replace them. For many, mastering OpenClaw has been less about curiosity than survival in a workplace where AI adoption is accelerating rapidly.

You can get eliminated anytime. How can you not be anxious?”

“It feels like playing Squid Game,” Shanghai-based Lambert Li, who was among the early users of OpenClaw, told Rest of World, referring to the Netflix drama where contestants compete in brutal elimination games. “You can get eliminated anytime. How can you not be anxious?” Li’s employer laid off 30% of its workforce in 2025, cutting employees who were unable to adapt quickly enough to AI.