In what can be called a landmark ruling for the age of artificial intelligence (AI) and automation, a Chinese court has ruled that companies cannot simply fire employees to replace them with AI without following strict labor laws. The Hangzhou Intermediate People’s Court recently ruled that an AI tech company acted unlawfully when it dismissed a senior employee after his tasks were taken over by large language models (LLMs) – the underlying technology of AI solutions.According to a report by Chinese news agency Xinhua, the case was one of several “typical examples” released by the court to highlight the protection of worker rights as China accelerates its adoption of AI.
The Dispute: AI vs human supervisor
The legal battle began when a tech worker joined an AI hub in late 2022 as a quality assurance supervisor. His job was to ensure AI models provided accurate and safe responses by filtering illegal content and matching user queries. However, as AI technology advanced, the company reportedly used its own models to perform Zhou’s tasks. The firm attempted to demote Zhou to a lower-level role with a 40% pay cut. When Zhou refused the new terms, the company terminated his contract, claiming “organizational restructuring”.The core of the case rested on whether AI-driven replacement qualifies as a “major change in objective circumstances” under China’s Labor Contract Law – a category reserved for massive events like company mergers or relocations.
What the Chinese court ruled
The court’s findings included that AI replacement does not constitute a “major change” that justifies ending a contract. Additionally, it observed that offering an alternative job with a substantial salary reduction is not a “reasonable” reassignment. Thirdly, the court ruled that companies benefiting from AI efficiency must still uphold their social and legal responsibilities to their human staff.Notably, this is not the first such incident. Similar rulings have emerged across China, including a recent case in Beijing involving a map data collector. On December 26, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Human Resources and Social Security released a set of typical arbitration cases for 2025, including a dispute triggered by AI-driven job displacement that involved a map data collector.In that case, the panel found that adopting AI is a ‘voluntary move’ by a company to stay competitive, and the risks of that technological shift should not be forced solely onto the employees.
