Huawei is not afraid to address the elephant in the room. When US mobile carrier AT&T pulled out of a deal to sell the Mate 10 Pro in January, the CEO of Huawei's consumer business unit, Yu Chengdong (Richard Yu), went off-script at the end of his CES 2018 keynote and tackled the topic head-on. Similarly, when Huawei made artificial intelligence the central theme of its annual Huawei Connect conference in Shanghai, rotating chairman Xu Zhijun (Eric Xu) was quick to bring up the topic of jobs in his opening speech. Concern that robots would replace human workers was a recurring topic throughout Huawei Connect 2018. Speakers addressed the issue during product launches, technical presentations, and panel discussions, offering varying perspectives around the fundamental impact AI will have on the nature of (human) work.