January 26th coincided with the traditional Chinese Laba Festival. Jack Ma, wearing a white shirt and a black coat, participated via video call as scheduled in the annual "Laba Festival Appointment," discussing the future of education in the AI era with rural teachers across the country. In response to the anxiety about whether rural education would be left behind by AI, Ma gave a confident answer: the AI era is not only a competition of technology but also an opportunity for education to return to its essence.

Ma pointed out that the core of education in the AI era should shift from "imparting correct answers" to "cultivating the ability to ask questions." He emphasized that the focus of the future is no longer to have children compete with AI in calculation and memory, but to protect and stimulate their curiosity, saying, "Curiosity is the source of computing power." He believes that the real gap lies not in the technology itself, but in differences in curiosity, imagination, creativity, judgment, and collaborative abilities.

"We should teach children to use AI well, rather than hesitate about whether to use it or not," said Ma. He stated that future education should aim to help children think more interestingly and uniquely. He called on the education sector to use AI tools to free up productivity, enabling a thousand students to learn to ask ten thousand different good questions, thereby cultivating future talents with independent thinking abilities.