By Walter Sim | DEC 7, 2019, 5:00 AM SGT |
Alibaba founder, Softbank boss emphasise need for right focus to breed curious minds
People will be at the heart of the age of artificial intelligence (AI), two of Asia's tech titans and investors said yesterday, as they urged a fundamental shift in how schools and workplaces are run to breed curious minds.
Alibaba founder Jack Ma and Softbank's Masayoshi Son - two kindred spirits and friends who regularly debate and discuss philosophy - said innovation will be held at a greater premium in the future.
"People have to learn, and the best university is society. The best teachers are the mistakes," said Mr Ma, 55, who retired in September as chief executive of the e-commerce giant to focus on philanthropy.
"We used to teach people to remember more, calculate faster, make them more knowledgeable," he said. "But now we are making machines like people. So we have to change the way of education to make sure our kids are creative, constructive and innovative."
Mr Son, 62, concurred, saying concerns that AI will cost jobs are overblown, noting that it would be similar to when Japan shifted away from an agrarian society with the Meiji Restoration of 1868.
He said: "New jobs will be created, and we will always find new exciting stuff to do."
The duo were speaking at an hour-long dialogue session at the first Tokyo Forum, which is jointly organised by Japan's University of Tokyo and South Korea's Chey Institute for Advanced Studies.
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