“A court in eastern China’s Hangzhou city, an AI hub, has ruled in favor of a senior tech worker whose company replaced him with artificial intelligence (AI).The decision is being hailed by legal scholars as a reassuring signal for labor rights protection at a time when the central Chinese leadership is pushing for industries to widely adopt AI technology.The Hangzhou Intermediate People’s Court upheld an earlier decision by a lower-level court that the tech worker’s dismissal was unlawful. »The termination grounds cited by the company did not fall under negative circumstances such as business downsizing or operational difficulties, nor did they meet the legal condition that made it ‘impossible to continue the employment contract,' » the court said in a published article.At the heart of the case is whether a company can use AI replacement as a pretext for laying off human workers.”

Source : A tech worker in China is laid off and replaced by AI. Is it legal? : NPR