View / ‘FOBO’ is driving China’s AI anxiety

China has long been a nation of techno-optimists, and not just because software and engineering — from smartphones to high-speed trains to drone deliveries — have radically improved life across the country in the span of a single generation.

Faith in technology as a force for progress is embedded deeply in modern Chinese culture; the Communist Party itself traces its origins to an early 20th century political movement led by students and intellectuals who saw the cure to the country’s chronic weakness and backwardness as “Mr. Science” (and, ironically, “Mr. Democracy”).

This is why the collective bout of anxiety in China over AI is such a big deal.

For the first time in living memory, the arrival of a new technology has inspired apprehension, rather than unrestrained enthusiasm.

As in the US, Chinese workers fret about AI-induced layoffs. Indeed, the country has already witnessed scattered outbursts of AI-related labor unrest; in one episode, taxi drivers in the central industrial city of Wuhan protested the roll out of autonomous taxis by repeatedly hailing and then cancelling rides, paralyzing the system.

But concerns over AI strike a deeper nerve within Chinese society: In a country of strivers, AI is feeding a morbid obsession with being left behind.

A desperate attempt to keep up with the latest advances in AI is adding to psychological stresses on citizens in a hyper-competitive society where kids bury themselves in books for make-or-break high school exams, where tech workers routinely put in 72-hour workweeks, and where entrepreneurship is a Darwinian struggle for survival. Rui Ma, the founder of Tech Buzz China, an independent research and advisory firm, told me it’s not a question of FOMO — Fear of Missing Out — but what she calls FOBO: Fear of Being Obsolete.

The signals of social distress can be hard to read. A few months ago, when a frenzy broke out over Open Claw, an open source AI agent, it was widely interpreted as the latest example of the Chinese public eagerly embracing the next wave of transformative technology. Nationwide, programmers earned easy money rushing door-to-door to install the agent, which can take over tasks like organizing emails and booking travel. Early adopters became known as “lobster farmers.” Big tech cashed in on a sudden demand for AI tokens to “feed the lobster.”

In fact, argues Poe Zhao, a Beijing-based tech analyst, what looked at first like grassroots tech adoption was actually “closer to grassroots career panic.”

Open Claw mania subsided after users discovered the autonomous agent could play havoc with their computers by, for instance, deleting files unprompted. But fears that AI will render human skills worthless have only grown.

The phrase “AI anxiety” has been trending on WeChat, along with a quote from Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang: “You’re not going to lose your job to an AI, but you’re going to lose your job to someone who uses AI.”

Even before AI agents and robots started proliferating — China installed more factory robots last year than the rest of the world combined — youth unemployment rates were elevated as the broader economy tanks, and many had given up the exhausting effort to get ahead. Why bother, the thinking went, when the rewards of hard work and personal sacrifice were so uncertain? “Lying flat,” or doing the bare minimum to stay alive, became a lifestyle choice.

AI accelerates that trend. In doing so, it poses a political threat to the Communist Party. Xi Jinping’s “China Dream” centers on the idea that technology — and, increasingly, AI — will finally realize the country’s long quest to become “rich and powerful.” Kyle Chan, a Brookings Institution scholar, says “the overwhelming message is: ‘AI is great, let’s go all in.’”

Chinese society is not so sure. The question now is what compromises the Party is prepared to make. There are signs that it’s listening to public discontent — in a landmark legal case, a court in Hangzhou ruled that workers can’t be made redundant simply because AI can do a job more cheaply — although Xi himself has ruled out a broad extension of the social safety net, warning about “the trap of welfarism.”

It wouldn’t be a surprise if Xi changed his mind. He’s capable of policy U-turns when society turns restless, for example abandoning “zero-COVID” after urban residents took to the streets in protest at the state’s intrusion on their civil liberties. After all, the Party he leads is driven by a constant paranoia about its own obsolescence.