Use AI Responsibly, It Should Serve Humanity, Not Replace It: Alibaba's Jack Ma

Alibaba Group Holding BABA co-founder Jack Ma voiced his ideas and vision for a responsible and human-oriented artificial intelligence (AI) on Thursday at the company’s cloud unit.

Ma, 60, visited Alibaba Cloud’s campus in Hangzhou on Thursday, wearing an employee badge.

He highlighted that the ultimate purpose of AI is to help people live better and more meaningful lives, SCMP reported.

Also Read: Alibaba Cloud Bolsters AI Offerings To Competes Globally With New LLMs

Ma stressed responsible AI development by Alibaba Cloud. He also emphasized that AI should help to understand and serve humanity, not replace it.

For context, Alibaba fired 20,000 employees in 2023 after downsizing a similar workforce in 2022, Bloomberg reported in February 2024.

U.S. hyperscalars also downsized in thousands, citing a cost-saving push. Amazon.Com Inc AMZN initiated a record corporate downsizing in 2022, affecting 27,000 positions, followed by multiple smaller rounds of layoffs. Microsoft Corp MSFT fired 10,000 employees in early 2023, implying 4%-5% of its workforce.

In 2024, Microsoft let go of ~4000 employees. In 2023, Alphabet Inc GOOG GOOGL Google cut 12,000 jobs, affecting ~6% of its workforce. Since November 2022, Meta Platforms Inc META said it had laid off 21,000 employees, implying 25% of its workforce.

Ma relinquished his corporate roles and maintained a low profile since Chinese regulators scrapped the ambitious initial public offering of his fintech giant Ant Group. This was followed by an antitrust crackdown on domestic giants, including Alibaba, that lasted nearly three years.

Alibaba’s record 18.2 billion yuan penalty and Meituan’s MONGY 3.4 billion yuan fine over their monopolistic practices formed the bulk of the penalties for 2021.

However, Ma remains an Alibaba shareholder and spiritual leader. Ma has frequently appeared at Alibaba offices lately as the Chinese e-commerce juggernaut eyes a turnaround leveraging its AI moat.

Benchmark analyst Fawne Jiang noted that Alibaba is undergoing a long-awaited structural restructuring, driven by a rebound in its core e-commerce business. The analyst pronounced Alibaba as a leading player in China’s AI sector. Alibaba stands out with its competitive edge in infrastructure, proprietary models, and application capacity across diverse use cases.

Alibaba committed at least 380 billion yuan ($52 billion) in cloud computing and AI infrastructure over the next three years.

Price Action: BABA stock is up 0.07% at $104.20 at the last check on Friday.

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