Voice
By Jin Yingying
The Alibaba founder Jack Ma showed up in Hangzhou on Mar 27 after a long period of absence from the public view. He met with the Alibaba executives and visited Yungu School that he helped establish in 2017, discussing the challenges and opportunities brought about by the new wave of technological change in education.
During his visit, Jack Ma mentioned that technologies such as ChatGPT have already posed challenges to education. He emphasized that this is just the beginning of the AI era, "We should utilize AI to solve problems, rather than be controlled by it."
As a former English teacher, Ma said he hoped to teach again someday, as Yungu School reported on its official WeChat account.
Jack Ma's return to the public occasions has attracted global attention.
Bloomberg described him as "one of China's most recognizable business leaders" in an article that the Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. surged as much as 5.5% before relinquishing all its gains in Hong Kong, after exposed in the news that its billionaire co-founder had returned to his home country after more than a year abroad.
The Wall Street Journal highlighted Hangzhou's close connection to the e-commerce giant: In January, the Hangzhou municipal government signed a "strategic cooperation agreement" with Alibaba, and in mid-March, Hangzhou's municipal market regulator signed a "cooperation agreement" with the e-commerce company in part to help it "demonstrate its strengths in leading development, creating employment, international competitiveness, and achievements in innovative leadership in business models."
The Alibaba Group's global headquarters project, based in Hangzhou's Yuhang district, is in its final phase of construction and is expected to be fully completed by the end of this year.