Henrietta Levin

speaker

569 appearances 6 recordings 1 series first heard May 2026 last heard 6 Aug

Henrietta Levin’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

Trend

recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 6 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 2.

Appearances

newest first · ▶ plays the moment

Pekingology · Embodied AI and the Transformation of China’s Robotics Industry · 23 Jul 2026 podcast

In the conversation so far, it's been very clear that policy direction from the center has been instrumental in how the robotics sector in China has evolved, the pace of evolution as well.

But short of Xi Jinping himself,

Who is actually making these decisions in the government and in the party when it comes to Chinese policy on robotics and embodied AI in terms of particularly powerful individual players, but institutions as well?

In the US, the conversation around automation going back way before AI, but even more so now, often focuses on questions of the social safety net and jobs and people losing their jobs.

And in China...

we are seeing incredibly high youth unemployment, but then also difficult questions related to demographic change around a declining workforce over time.

So you see arguments, I think, in both directions, saying that on the one hand, automation and robotics and embodied AI might actually solve an emerging labor challenge as the workforce ages.

But on the other hand, in the immediate term, you have an unemployment crisis

that these innovations could exacerbate.

And in such a complicated context, it's interesting that Chinese policymakers, at least in public, don't seem very concerned regarding the labor dislocations that embodied AI could potentially create, or at least not in comparison to the somewhat humorous discourse that we have here in the US and often in Europe.

So what should we make of that?

It's fascinating that for a party so deeply fixated on maintaining social stability, they just seem not that worried about this huge potential transformation of the society and what it could mean for people's everyday lives.

Or maybe it's not that they're not concerned, it's that they just at least by policy anyway have incredible confidence that ultimately the aggregate outcome

outcome will be positive.

But it's funny because like even if that's true, even if the aggregate outcome is positive, the dislocations that you could see beneath that average could be incredibly significant.

And in looking at the measures that have been announced related to employment stability in new sectors, is that just like statements that it should matter?

Or do you see real measures there, real policy, real action to create more employment stability?

within these cutting edge sectors or as these cutting edge sectors increasingly dominate the broader economy?

And at the same time, as all of this is happening inside China, I think in capitals in Europe, Japan, the U.S., policymakers are increasingly puzzling over the best way to manage and compete with China's growing capabilities in robotics and embodied AI.

You mentioned at the beginning that it's still European and Japanese companies that dominate the larger forms of robotics globally.

Showing 141–160 of 569 · page 8 of 29