Alibaba Group Holding founder Jack Ma delivered a rare speech to the company’s cloud unit on Thursday, laying out his ideas and vision for a responsible and human-oriented artificial intelligence (AI), as the tech giant pivots to become China’s AI enabler.
Ma, 60, made a surprise visit to Alibaba Cloud’s campus in Hangzhou on Thursday, wearing an employee badge, to show support for the unit. According to an edited transcript of his speech provided by Alibaba, Ma drove home the message that the ultimate purpose of AI is to help people live better and more meaningful lives.
Ma, who remains the spiritual leader of the business empire he created 26 years ago, told employees at a ceremony kicking off a new fiscal year that the purpose of technology like AI was not to conquer “galaxies and oceans”, a poetic phrase in China referring to lofty goals and ambitions, but to protect the “smoke and fire of a mortal world”.
While Alibaba Cloud’s resources and tech talent were its advantages in AI and computing, the business also had to be responsible when it came to AI development, Ma said. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
“The purpose of technology is to help people live better, more meaningful lives and to ensure that everyone benefits from it,” Ma said. The role of technology was to bring change to everyone’s life and offer “dignity” to every individual, he added.
In a speech full of philosophical statements and few business details, Ma also emphasised that AI should be developed with the aim of understanding and serving humanity, not replacing it, an appeal made in response to growing public concern over the rapid progress of AI.
“I hope that all of us … will continue to work together to bring the world into a kind and hi-tech era,” Ma said. “We are not trying to make machines like humans, but rather to enable machines to understand humans, think like humans, and do things that humans cannot do,” Ma said.
