Backlash to agents slowly builds in China

Just as quickly as China embraced AI agents like OpenClaw, backlash to the autonomous tools is slowly bubbling up. Popular Chinese chatbot DeepSeek was down for more than 10 hours Sunday evening, sparking consternation among users who speculated the outage stemmed from a surge in usage via AI agents, which can take action on a user’s behalf. Dozens of Chinese tech firms have rolled out their own tools, but some users have complained about hefty bills or said the agents shared sensitive personal information, The Wire China wrote. The agentic enthusiasm has also created a sense of “AI anxiety” among China’s public, a tech analyst recently wrote, as people worry “they are not using AI aggressively enough.”