Elon Musk and Jack Ma don't see eye to eye on AI

Outspoken tech billionaires and entrepreneurs Jack Ma and Elon Musk may share some similarities. But their views on artificial intelligence (AI) and their interest in space exploration don't seem to be one of them. When the duo spoke on stage for the annual World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai on Thursday, Ma, chairman and cofounder of Alibaba (BABA), and Musk, CEO of Tesla (TSLA), avoided issues like trade and U.S.-China relations but focused on AI, just one of a series of topics presented by the organizer. It was clear that Ma doesn't seem to share Musk's passion for Mars and is not that concerned about AI one day outsmarting people. "When people talk about AI and say human beings will be controlled by machines -- I never think that. It's impossible," said Ma. "My view is that a computer may be clever. A human being is much smarter. Clever is very academic is knowledge-driven. "Definitely not," Musk immediately reacted. "Computers are much smarter than humans on so many dimensions." Musk has warned about the potential dangers of AI, even though his diverse investments, from Tesla to Neuralink, rely heavily on nascent technology. "The first thing you should assume is that we are very dumb, and that we can definitely make things smarter than ourselves," said Musk. Ma's reason for believing in human intelligence is simple -- humans invented computers and AI. "Computer is only one of the collaborative tools that humans created.