Lao Gan Ma faces boycott over AI replacing 500+ workers, exposing US-China AI sentiment gap
96Stats · x · 2026-10-27
Lao Gan Ma, China's most popular chili sauce brand, faced social media backlash and boycott calls after reports it replaced 500+ workers with AI (a linked report says 600 chili-sorting workers, with record revenue); the company denies layoffs. The author uses this to contrast AI sentiment: 83% of Chinese say AI does more good than harm vs 39% in the US. In China, optimism rests on AI improving society, so job losses trigger backlash; in the US, Block cut 4,000 jobs citing AI efficiencies and the stock rallied.
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