{"id":554490,"date":"2026-03-21T07:41:54","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T07:41:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/554490\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T07:41:54","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T07:41:54","slug":"inside-chinas-ai-squid-game-the-brutal-race-to-raise-a-lobster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/554490\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside China\u2019s AI Squid Game: The brutal race to \u2018raise a lobster\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this month, nearly a thousand people lined up outside Tencenti<\/a>Tencent<\/a>Best known for its super-app WeChat, Tencent is a Chinese technology conglomerate and a major player in the video gaming industry.READ MORE<\/a>\u2019s headquarters in Shenzhen to get a piece of software installed on their devices.<\/p>\n

The crowd \u2014 which included students, retirees, and general office workers \u2014 wanted to get access to the much-hyped OpenClaw, an open-source artificial intelligence agent built by Austrian programmer Peter Steinberger.<\/p>\n

The frenzy around OpenClaw in China \u2014 dubbed \u201craising a lobster,\u201d referring to the AI agent\u2019s red logo \u2014 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.<\/p>\n

You can get eliminated anytime. How can you not be anxious?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels like playing Squid Game,\u201d 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. \u201cYou can get eliminated anytime. How can you not be anxious?\u201d Li\u2019s employer laid off 30% of its workforce in 2025, cutting employees who were unable to adapt quickly enough to AI.<\/p>\n

The growth of AI has triggered global anxiety about job loss \u2014 and it is most palpable in China, where the government is pouring enormous resources into artificial intelligence, and betting on it to drive the country\u2019s future economic growth. China has one of the world\u2019s largest<\/a> AI user bases. The massive push has caused a constant fear of redundancy among workers, coupled with the social stigma of job loss. Experts believe this could have larger economic and social implications for the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen a large number of middle-class workers and young people worry that AI could disrupt their careers, they tend to cut back on spending and increase precautionary savings in case they are laid off,\u201d Li Chen, a Chinese economy researcher at the Beijing-based think tank Anbound, told Rest of World. \u201cThat could hinder the government\u2019s efforts to stimulate the economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

After joining the OpenClaw hype for a few days, software developer Li quickly realized the agent was not really useful for him. Unlike popular bots like ChatGPT or Gemini, OpenClaw operates directly on a user\u2019s computer and autonomously executes tasks across files and apps. Li doesn\u2019t use OpenClaw regularly because he\u2019s worried it would make mistakes if given too much access to his work files and systems.<\/p>\n

But he feels he cannot ignore AI entirely. Since last year, the 35-year-old has jumped from one AI tool to another, testing every major model update and productivity agent he hears about.<\/p>\n

On popular Chinese social media platform RedNote, #AIAnxiety has drawn around 2.6 million views. Users frequently share personal worries: \u201cTrying to keep up with AI is more exhausting than the job itself,\u201d one post reads. \u201cMy boss asked me to write AI code to replace several staff members,\u201d says another. \u201cWhen will it be my turn?\u201d<\/p>\n

In an August 2025 survey<\/a> of 38,000 working adults across 34 countries, nearly a third of the respondents said they \u201cstrongly believe\u201d AI could replace them, and that they were actively seeking new employment.<\/p>\n

China has been very optimistic about AI<\/a>, according to a KPMG survey. It showed 69% of Chinese respondents said AI\u2019s general benefits outweighed its risks, compared to 35% of Americans.<\/p>\n

A study by Peking University<\/a> analyzed more than a million online job postings in China between 2018 and 2024. It found that functions that could be performed using AI had seen a significant decline in hiring. These roles included computer programming, accounting, editing, and sales.<\/p>\n

In a May 2025 survey<\/a> by Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, 85.5% of 11,814 Chinese respondents said they were worried about how AI could affect their employment.<\/p>\n

The unemployment rate for Chinese youth aged 16\u201324 years is higher than the global average<\/a>, and hovered around 15%\u201319% in 2025. In the U.S., the unemployment rate for the same age group<\/a> is 9%\u201311%.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs AI reshapes the job market, the challenges China faces in terms of changing the education structurally \u2014 combined with social pressure on individuals to position themselves for the future \u2014 could make the anxiety facing Chinese youth even more acute than in the West,\u201d Jack Linzhou Xing, a postdoctoral fellow at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University, told Rest of World.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If they fire me, they fire me. \u2026 I will wait for some welfare handouts.\u201d<\/p>\n

AI anxiety is also fueled by a growing gap between China\u2019s narrative of technological progress and the reality many workers experience on the ground, where competition is intensifying even as the country races ahead in global tech development, said Xing, who researches the sociology of technology in China.<\/p>\n

Frank Wang, a 28-year-old programmer in Chengdu, told Rest of World he used to be very anxious about AI replacing him at work until last year, but has now realized he wouldn\u2019t be able to fight this trend.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am now just \u2018lying flat<\/a>,\u2019\u201d Wang said, referring to a viral phrase that means doing the bare minimum at work. \u201cIf they fire me, they fire me. \u2026 I will wait for some welfare handouts.\u201d<\/p>\n

AI anxiety has not spared even non-technical workers. Earlier this month, product marketing manager Betty Lai was told her company\u2019s annual work appraisals would include employees\u2019 knowledge and use of AI. A colleague immediately organized a voluntary OpenClaw training workshop and had attendees fighting for a front-row seat at the event.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe pressure [to use AI] sometimes comes from the company expecting us to become more efficient with these tools,\u201d Lai told Rest of World. \u201cBut that\u2019s not always true yet. It can take time to figure out how to actually incorporate them into your job. \u2026 There\u2019s no point in being anxious. We\u2019re already in this wave. Either you ride it, or you get wiped out.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Earlier this month, nearly a thousand people lined up outside TencentiTencentBest known for its super-app WeChat, Tencent is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":554491,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[256,254,255,64,63,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-554490","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-au","12":"tag-australia","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=554490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554490\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/554491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}