- Jack Ma urged education reform to align with AI's rapid growth, focusing on rural China
- He stressed teaching children how to use AI effectively, not discouraging its use
- Ma emphasised fostering curiosity, creativity, and collaboration over memorisation
Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba Group, has shared his opinion on how education must be shaped around the rapid growth of artificial intelligence (AI). In a report by the South China Morning Post (SCMP), he has emphasised the need for a shift in China's rural education system, aligning it with the AI era. His suggestions were meant for the Chinese rural set-up, but they are applicable globally, as the children across the world need to learn more about AI, so that they can make a wise decision while using AI systems.
The report stated that while speaking to rural teachers at a meeting conducted via video call, he stressed that education should prioritise teaching children to use AI effectively, instead of telling them not to.
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"In the AI era, the question is no longer whether to use AI, but how to teach our children to use AI well," the report quoted him telling the teachers. The meeting was an annual practice, where he meets recruits to his foundation's Rural Teachers Initiative, which gives financial support and professional training to promising rural teachers in China.
"Education should no longer be about making children compete with AI in calculation and memory. Instead, we should help children maintain their curiosity, as curiosity is the source of 'computing power.'"
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Some recruits raised concerns that rural education faces challenges in adapting to AI. But the Alibaba founder has called for an education system that encourages students to ask questions, rather than providing standardised answers.
He suggests that AI also presents opportunities to return to the fundamentals of education. "The real gap in the AI era is not a technological gap, but rather a gap in curiosity, imagination, creativity, judgment and collaboration," Ma was quoted as saying.
"In the AI era, our education system must not aim to have a thousand students give the same correct answer, but rather to teach a thousand students to ask ten thousand different, good questions."
His comments highlight the need for education reform in China's rural areas, and also serves as a lesson for other nations.
