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The simple reason technology will never replace humans, according to Jack Ma

People are wise, so have confidence in yourselves and don’t worry about the robot revolution, urges the Alibaba founder

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Alibaba chairman Jack Ma speaking in Hangzhou. Photo: Reuters
Have confidence in yourself - technology will never replace human beings, insisted Jack Ma in a keynote speech at Alibaba Cloud’s Computing Conference in Hangzhou.

There’s one simple reason for that, the Alibaba founder said - we possess wisdom.

“People are getting more worried about the future, about technology replacing humans, eliminating jobs and widening the gap between the rich and the poor,” said Ma. “But I think these are empty worries.

“Technology exists for people. We worry about technology because we lack confidence in ourselves, and imagination for the future.”

Ma explained that humans are the only things on Earth that are wise. “People will always surpass machines because people possess wisdom,” he said.

Referencing AlphaGo, the Google artificial intelligence program that beat the world’s top Go player at his own game, Ma said that there was no reason humanity should be saddened by the defeat.

“AlphaGo? So what? AlphaGo should compete against AlphaGo 2.0, not us. There’s no need to be upset that we lost. It shows that we’re smart, because we created it.”

Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.

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