Jack Ma surprisingly turns up in China – for reasons

Jack Ma, the Chinese tech billionaire and founder of Alibaba Group Holding, recently returned to China after nearly a year in Western countries. And he covers a subject that burns under everyone’s nails: AI.

According to the Alibaba-owned South China Morning Post (SCMP), the charismatic entrepreneur visited a school he founded in Hangzhou city and spoke about the impact of AI on education.

According to a post on the state-controlled WeChat platform, Ma discussed with school officials “the future of education in the era of rapidly developing artificial intelligence technology.”

The billionaire added that, according to the SCMP report, technologies like ChatGPT would pose challenges for teachers and that, according to the school, this is just the beginning of the AI ​​era.

Ma, who was an English teacher before founding Alibaba, also revealed that teaching is his favorite job and hopes to return to it one day.

Submerged after criticism

The world-famous Alibaba founder had faded from the public eye in recent years — after publicly criticizing Beijing’s authoritarian communist regime as anti-business or “inhibiting innovation.”

Ma, who took early retirement as chairman of Alibaba on his 55th birthday in 2019, has traveled to several countries to learn about agricultural technology, sources said. His route is closely monitored by Chinese observers.

Angela Zhang, an associate professor at Hong Kong University, said Ma’s whereabouts have become a “litmus test of the friendliness of China’s business climate”.

Ma’s return to Hangzhou this week has given the country’s private sector much-needed confidence. “This should also help allay concerns about the personal safety of business people in mainland China,” said the professor.

In January 2023, it was announced that Ma was also relinquishing control of financial giant Ant Group and further withdrawing from his online empire.

Sources

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