Chinese Voices Have Started to Question the Hype Around AI

We should listen to their warnings about adopting AI too quickly

- CATHERINE THORBECKE

Against the odds, some in China are questioning the top-down push to get aboard the artificial intelligence (AI) hype bandwagon. In a tightly controlled media environment where these experts can easily be drowned out, it's important to listen to them.

Across the US and Europe, loud voices inside and outside the tech industry are urging caution about AI's rapid acceleration, pointing to labor market threats or more catastrophic risks. But in China, this chorus has been largely muted. Until now.

China has the highest global share of people who say AI tools have more benefits than drawbacks, and they've shown an eagerness to embrace it. It's hard to overstate the exuberance in the tech sector since the emergence of DeepSeek's market-moving reasoning model earlier this year. Innovations and updates have been unfurling at breakneck speed and the technology is being widely adopted across the country. But not everyone's on board.

Publicly, state-backed media has lauded the widespread adoption of DeepSeek across hundreds of hospitals in China. But a group of medical researchers tied to Tsinghua University published a paper in the medical journal JAMA in late April gently questioning if this was happening "too fast, too soon."