Amid plans to resign as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. chairman, Jack Ma has been busy preaching the importance of artificial intelligence (AI.) He said that the tech revolution included the use of AI, and that all technological advancements will be a big help in shaping the future even today.
Speaking at the Summer Davos Summit 2018 in Tianjin, Ma highlighted that the tech revolution, assisted as it was by the internet, will move at an even faster rate. The way it's going, it will be indispensable in all parts of a person's life. He said that the responsibility to aid people in understanding the revolution better was each one's job, China Daily highlighted, and he said that there will be difficulties, but people must help each other to overcome these.
There has been the prevailing thought that AI is bad-especially automation-because people will lose jobs as they are replaced by machines. Jack Ma, however, said that people should adapt to the trend. The worry, he highlighted, wasn't in the replacement of jobs. The problem was if human wisdom, collectively, will start to become stagnant.
Jack Ma isn't alone in his approach, however; NVIDIA's Ian Buck is mirroring the same ideal. He said in a testimony to the US House of Representatives that the government should look into research in AI and should boost the funding for the study. He added that the nation's economy stood to benefit, as well as the government services, as processes become streamlined and more efficient.
HPC Wire shared that US lawmakers were intent on exploring all possible applications of AI. It was highlighted as an example of how the lines of science fiction and reality are being blurred. It was also one of the signs that artificial intelligence is being taken more seriously right now. The next level, reportedly, will be a study into how it can be used in day to day life.
On the part of Ma and Alibaba, they plan to research into technology to improve industries. An evidence of this is the New Manufacturing concept from Alibaba, or a major shift of manufacturing towards "personalized approaches" according to what the people demand, improved by technology.
He said that new challenges will indeed arrive, as well as many more improvements such as the increasing reliance on the Internet of Things (IoT). In this, Jack Ma said people will have to work together to overcome the challenges.
