Chinese op-ed asks: with AI everywhere in 2025, what’s left for humans?

This widely read Chinese essay captures a mood that’s increasingly common worldwide: AI has moved so far beyond "tools" that people are now asking what domains of intimacy, work and governance will remain truly human. It strings together vignettes about AI romantic partners, low‑cost "digital resurrection" of the dead, AI‑mediated pet communication and algorithmic governance—from welfare eligibility to traffic control—to argue that we are outsourcing not just labor but emotional and civic agency to machines. The perspective is notable because it appears in a mainstream financial outlet, not an academic journal, and it synthesizes Western and Chinese debates for a domestic audience.([finance.sina.com.cn](https://finance.sina.com.cn/stock/t/2025-12-27/doc-inhefcyp1862666.shtml))

For AGI watchers, this is a reminder that the social license for pushing more capable systems is fragile and culturally specific. As frontier labs race ahead on capabilities, essays like this help set the Overton window in key markets about what uses of AI feel acceptable or dystopian. In China in particular, where the state is actively exploring algorithmic governance, the piece’s critique of "pseudo‑intimacy" and AI bureaucracy suggests a counter‑narrative to uncritical techno‑optimism. If that critique hardens into policy—around limits on AI companions, transparency in AI‑mediated public services or rights to "opt‑out" of AI interactions—it could shape the demand side of AGI deployment even if it doesn’t slow core research.

The essay also underlines a key strategic question for labs everywhere: if AI can simulate empathy, memory and responsiveness better than many human relationships, what deliberate design choices and guardrails are needed to prevent mass substitution of human bonds with algorithmic ones?