NDRC's Wang Ruomeng responds to AI's employment impact, proposing monitoring and early-warning and social security linkage measures

While artificial intelligence brings enormous development opportunities, it also brings new risks and challenges such as algorithm security and ethical norms, and has an impact on employment.

Wang Ruomeng, deputy director of the Innovation and High-Tech Development Department of the National Development and Reform Commission, said at a press conference on the 3rd that we should actively respond to the impact of artificial intelligence on society and ensure that it is people-centered and oriented toward good.

Among these, regarding the employment impact, Wang Ruomeng said that we should pay close attention to the impact of artificial intelligence on the employment structure, fully stimulate the vitality of artificial intelligence in creating new jobs and driving innovation and entrepreneurship, and promote the inclusion of new occupations such as model trainers and data annotators in the national occupational classification system. At the same time, regarding the risk of job replacement that the public is concerned about, we should strengthen monitoring and early warning, strengthen the connection between the social security system and changes in employment structure and working methods, and provide bottom-line and inclusive social security.

The General Office of the State Council recently issued the Opinions on Adapting to the Development of Artificial Intelligence Technology to Help Build an Employment-Friendly Development Model, which proposes to actively enhance the positive effects of artificial intelligence in creating employment opportunities, empowering traditional jobs, improving employment quality, and stimulating entrepreneurial vitality, effectively mitigate the job replacement impact of artificial intelligence applications, and strive to achieve inclusive development in which technological progress, industrial upgrading, employment promotion, and improvement of people's livelihoods are coordinated.

Regarding the protection of rights and interests, Wang Ruomeng said that for issues of public concern such as algorithmic discrimination, deepfakes, and privacy leaks, technical means should be used to enhance the ability to trace abusive and malicious use, resolutely crack down on illegal and criminal acts carried out using artificial intelligence, and ensure that the lawful rights and interests of the people are not infringed upon, especially protecting special groups such as the elderly and minors. Regarding mental health, we should regulate the human-machine boundary, strengthen guidance and intervention to prevent addiction and emotional dependence, improve channels for social psychological assistance and intervention, and address the impact of artificial intelligence on mental health.

In recent years, China's artificial intelligence development speed and application scale have led the world, and positive results have been achieved in shaping new drivers of economic development, improving people's well-being, and enhancing government governance.

Wang Ruomeng said that during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, we will continue to leverage advantages such as a complete industrial system, rich application scenarios, and strong engineering capabilities, focus on using implementation and application to drive technological innovation, make coordinated efforts at the point, line, and surface levels, and deepen and expand the "Artificial Intelligence+" initiative.

He introduced that at the point level, with scenarios as the unit, we will organize "Artificial Intelligence+" application breakthroughs, giving priority to scenarios that are "dangerous, dirty, tiring, tedious, and difficult," such as mining, work at heights, and emergency disaster relief, use artificial intelligence to solve industry pain points, and establish more application models and benchmarks.

At the line level, with industries as the entry point, we will continue to promote the construction of national artificial intelligence application pilot bases in manufacturing, energy, transportation, healthcare, and other fields, coordinate the supply of factors and resources such as computing power, models, and data in response to common problems in industry applications, accelerate the formulation of standards and application promotion, and lower the threshold for artificial intelligence implementation in industries.

At the surface level, with institutions as the focus, we will improve the "Artificial Intelligence+" policy system, refine the implementation of key industry implementation plans, formulate guidelines for classifying application scenarios, and provide stronger institutional support for deepening and expanding "Artificial Intelligence+".