Viral claims of AI-driven job cuts at Lao Gan Ma

For three decades, Lao Gan Ma’s glass jars, bearing the stern portrait of founder Tao Huabi, have been a fixture on Chinese dinner tables and a symbol of traditional food manufacturing.

Online rumours that the Guizhou-based company had replaced hundreds of factory workers with AI went viral, prompting boycott threats and highlighting growing public unease over the impact of automation on jobs in the world’s second-largest economy.

Speculation mounted on the social media platform Weibo on Monday after claims spread that Lao Gan Ma had reduced its chilli-sorting workforce from more than 600 people to just 48 after installing an AI-powered inspection system.