Chinese billionaire Jack Ma, founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba, made a rare public appearance in China on Monday since his group’s setbacks in 2020.
The charismatic businessman has been keeping a low profile for two and a half years after public criticism of the Chinese regulator, which had put his group in the crosshairs of power.
In particular, authorities had halted a massive Hong Kong IPO by Ant Group, its group’s payment subsidiary, while parent company Alibaba was later fined 2.3 billion euros for abuse of a dominant position.
Previously very much in the media, Jack Ma, 58, had hardly been seen in public since then.
After spending several months abroad, the former English teacher visited a school near Shanghai founded by Alibaba partners on Monday, according to a message posted on social media by the establishment.
A debate on AI
Jack Ma met with the staff and visited the classrooms before speaking about artificial intelligence (AI), specifies the text that is accompanied by photos, widely disseminated by local media.
“Technologies similar to ChatGPT already pose challenges for education, but ChatGPT is just the beginning of the AI era,” said Jack Ma, referring to the American chatbot.
Free, fast and multilingual, ChatGPT allows you to formulate detailed answers in a few seconds on a wide range of topics and write essays, raising fears of a new way of cheating and less investment from students.
“We should use AI to solve problems and not be controlled by AI,” advocated Jack Ma, stressing that unlike machines, humans have “hearts.”
Jack Ma, who left the leadership of his group in 2019 to devote himself fully to philanthropic activities, relinquished control of Ant Group in January.
He is one of the most famous businessmen in China. His atypical personal journey and his showmanship have made his success an example for a whole generation of entrepreneurs in his country.
Since his retirement from the media in 2020, every bit of information about the billionaire and his travels has been widely discussed in China on social media.
Source: BFM TV
