Lao Gan Ma faced intense social media scrutiny after executive vice-president Li Xin claimed an AI pepper inspection system slashed staff on one line from over 600 workers to 48. Li noted that the automation reduced defect rates and helped push the company to a record 5.4 billion yuan revenue in 2025. While confirming the use of AI, a company representative insisted that mass layoffs never occurred because the line had never employed that many staff. The controversy rapidly went viral, with related discussions generating tens of millions of views on Sina Weibo.
Key points
Lao Gan Ma publicly denied enacting mass layoffs despite confirming the deployment of art…: Lao Gan Ma publicly denied enacting mass layoffs despite confirming the deployment of artificial intelligence in its factories.
Online backlash included boycott calls from consumers accusing the popular condiment bran…: Online backlash included boycott calls from consumers accusing the popular condiment brand of neglecting its working-class origins.
The incident reflects expanding public concern regarding the impact of rapid factory auto…: The incident reflects expanding public concern regarding the impact of rapid factory automation on China's domestic labor market.
Sources checked by our analysis pipeline: 1
The iconic chilli oil maker faced online criticism after an executive reportedly said AI-powered technology had drastically reduced staffing on a production line.
BEIJING: Iconic Chinese chilli oil maker Lao Gan Ma has denied allegations that it replaced hundreds of factory jobs by adopting artificial intelligence-driven production, after reports of large-scale job cuts sparked outrage on social media.
Controversy erupted online after the company’s executive vice-president and chief quality officer Li Xin commented on the technology at a provincial government conference held in late September.
Li highlighted how AI had significantly reduced product defect rates and helped the company achieve a record-high revenue of 5.4 billion yuan (US$810 million) in 2025, according to state media reports.
He also reportedly said that the number of workers on one production line fell from over 600 to just 48 after the introduction of an AI-powered pepper inspection system last year.
This triggered a wave of criticism online, with Chinese social media users accusing the company - which has long cultivated an image rooted in working-class origins - of prioritising profits and efficiency over…
Led by CEO Pranav Mulgund, the procurement startup aims to tackle longstanding operational bottlenecks in the industrial sector. By deploying artificial intelligence directly across complex manufacturing datasets, the platform helps businesses automate and reconcile problematic purchasing and payment issues. The major capital injection marks the enterprise tech firm's formal public launch out of stealth mode.
Background agent status updates running roughly every 30 seconds repeatedly transmit full transcripts back to the primary model, quietly draining user rate limits and budgets. Enabled by default since August 2026 without an official toggle, the mechanism occasionally costs more than the primary conversation despite having zero influence on ongoing model context. Flamerix AI has released an open-source workaround to disable the recurring timer and eliminate the associated overhead.
A Chinese artificial intelligence model has demonstrated the ability to carry out complex cyberattacks, according to researchers. The operations were conducted within controlled testing environments.