Hundreds of people lined up outside Tencent’s headquarters in Shenzhen this month — retirees, students, office workers, homemakers — waiting for engineers to install a piece of software on their devices. They weren’t there for a product launch. They were there because they were afraid.
The software is called OpenClaw, an open-source AI agent built by Austrian programmer Peter Steinberger that can autonomously manage emails, browse the web, apply for jobs, and handle dozens of other tasks with minimal human direction. Since its release last November, it has become one of the fastest-growing software repositories on GitHub. But nowhere has it taken hold more intensely than China, where OpenClaw usage has already surpassed adoption in the United States — and where the frenzy around it has become a window into something larger and more uncomfortable than a software trend.
“You Can Get Eliminated Anytime”
Chinese internet users call installing and training OpenClaw “raising a lobster” — a reference to its red claw logo. The phrase captures both the affection and the dread. On Xiaohongshu, China’s version of Instagram, the hashtag #AIAnxiety has accumulated roughly 2.6 million views. Posts range from darkly relatable to genuinely alarming: “Trying to keep up with AI is more exhausting than my current job.” “My boss asked me to write AI code to replace some employees. When will it be my turn?”
Lambert Li, a Shanghai-based early OpenClaw user whose company cut 30% of its workforce in 2025 — specifically targeting employees who couldn’t adapt quickly enough to AI tools — described the experience as “playing Squid Game. You can get eliminated anytime. How can you not be anxious?”
The comparison to a brutal elimination competition isn’t hyperbole. At one major Chinese finance company, managers told employees over the Lunar New Year holiday that they were required to stay for an OpenClaw proficiency contest. Staff who pushed back were warned they’d be replaced if they couldn’t demonstrate AI competency. The contest was postponed, but the message wasn’t.
A Government Bet, A Worker’s Fear
The intensity of China’s AI anxiety is partly a function of scale and speed. More than 600 million people in China — over a third of the population — already use generative AI, according to a Chinese government internet development report. The government has explicitly framed AI adoption as a national economic priority, pouring enormous resources into development and directing local governments to subsidize AI startups. Several district governments are offering up to $1.4 million in grants for entrepreneurs building on OpenClaw.
The collision between top-down technological ambition and ground-level job insecurity has produced a specific kind of anxiety: not the diffuse worry that AI might eventually disrupt work, but the immediate, personal fear that falling behind on one specific tool could cost you your job next quarter.
For non-technical workers, this feels particularly disorienting. Betty Lai, a product marketing manager, was informed that her company’s annual performance review would now include assessments of AI knowledge and usage. A colleague immediately organized a voluntary OpenClaw training session — and attendees scrambled for seats.
The Gap Between Narrative and Reality
Jack Linzhou Xing, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard’s Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies who researches technology sociology in China, argues the anxiety is compounded by a specific dissonance: China’s official story about AI is triumphalist, while many workers’ daily experience is one of intensifying pressure and deepening insecurity. “The challenges China faces in changing its educational structure — combined with social pressure for individuals to position themselves for the future — could make the anxiety facing Chinese youth even more acute than in the West,” Xing told Rest of World.
The anxiety isn’t irrational. It reflects real labor market shifts in a country where the economy has been slowing, youth unemployment has been elevated, and AI tools are being deployed as cost-cutting instruments at exactly the moment workers feel least secure. A global survey of 38,000 working adults across 34 countries found that nearly a third “strongly believe” AI can replace them — and that they are actively seeking new jobs as a result.
Some workers have landed on pragmatic resignation. Frank Wang, a 28-year-old programmer in Chengdu, said he used to be consumed by the fear of AI displacement until he decided that fighting the trend was pointless. His OpenClaw agent is now named “Big House” — his goal, he said, is to work alongside the machine well enough that it can’t afford to replace him.