Artificial intelligence won’t replace humans anytime soon, say China’s tech leaders

While there’s no doubt artificial intelligence (AI) is the new frontier, AI applications won’t be able to perform complicated jobs or replace humans anytime soon, China’s tech leaders said on Thursday.

Technology companies in China and the rest of the world are exploring opportunities in AI, but the foundation for the technology is still not mature, said Pony Ma Huateng, chairman and chief executive of Chinese internet powerhouse Tencent Holdings.

“Cloud computing driven by AI and big data are absolutely the new frontier but... I think we still need a lot of effort in building the foundation, for example we need better algorithms,” Ma said at the World Internet Conference in Wuzhen.

It is possible for AI technology to be used in various industries with different applications but because current technology development is too preliminary AI is unable to perform complicated tasks, he added.

“We have been discussing AI for a decade, but only saw a breakthrough over the past year after [Google’s] Alpha Go beat a human [playing Go]. However, applying AI technology in various industries is not that simple. We are still far away from achieving this,” Ma said.

Tencent and China’s two other technology giants Baidu and Alibaba Group – collectively known as BAT – have all been investing in developing AI technologies.