Good morning. A refreshing bit of news out of China this morning, where JD.com founder Liu Qiangdong promised to protect the company’s 900,000 employees from AI and automation.
That may seem like a surprising stance for JD, China’s largest retailer by revenue and No. 44 on Fortune’s Global 500. But look more closely and it’s clear the Beijing-based company is not shying away from progress.
JD has fully committed to unmanned warehouses, drone delivery, self-driving vehicles, and more physical AI goodness. The difference? It vows to not fire any frontline worker replaced by machines. Instead, the company will retrain its employees via some 80 centers across China. (To do what, you ask? Maintain and service the automated systems, naturally.)
Before you think it’s purely altruistic, it’s worth noting that a Chinese court ruled in April that companies cannot terminate workers simply to replace them with AI. Add in China’s labor market instability and economic headwinds and you can see why the centrally run, unitary, one-party nation might want to consider the big picture when it comes to AI.
Today’s tech news follows. Have a wonderful weekend. —Andrew Nusca
