NYT Opinion Examines US-China AI Rivalry Through Didi’s Tens of Millions of Daily Rides
Updated
Updated · The New York Times · May 12
NYT Opinion Examines US-China AI Rivalry Through Didi’s Tens of Millions of Daily Rides
3 articles · Updated · The New York Times · May 12
A New York Times opinion essay uses a Shanghai Didi ride to frame how algorithmic management leaves workers in both China and the United States scrambling for scarce jobs and unstable pay.
The driver asked the author to cancel and pay via WeChat so he could avoid being sent back into hours-long airport queues, a concrete example of workers trying to outmaneuver dispatch systems.
The piece argues that beneath the usual US-China AI competition narrative lies a shared precarity: DoorDash and Amazon Flex workers face pressures similar to Chinese gig drivers.
It contrasts the two countries’ AI strengths—US capital, chips, software and frontier-model bets versus China’s engineering, manufacturing, hardware and rapid deployment—while questioning whether the race framing obscures who benefits.
As algorithms quietly set pay for millions, what new rights are needed to ensure human workers are not left behind?
Is the global AI 'race' a distraction from a shared crisis of worker precarity unfolding within all nations?