Across China's cities, a technological transformation is unfolding faster than the social fabric can absorb it — artificial intelligence is displacing workers not at the margins of the economy, but at its struggling center. In Wuhan, robotaxis have hollowed out taxi drivers' wages by nearly half; in Beijing, cinematographers with decades of craft find their livelihoods compressed into a shrinking corner that AI has not yet claimed. China's gig workforce, which doubled to 320 million people since 2019, now faces a second disruption before recovering from the first — and the government, long an
China's AI boom leaves workers scrambling as jobs vanish faster than safety nets
Millions of workers face wage cuts and job displacement; taxi drivers and cinematographers report 40% income reductions; workers express fear of permanent unemployment as AI capabilities advance faster than policy responses.