Jack Ma recently spoke at a rural education gathering in China. A teacher asked him: "Will rural education be left behind in the AI era?"

Ma's answer surprised me. He said AI is a challenge, yes. But it's also an opportunity to return to what education should really be about.

His core argument:

"In the AI era, the question is no longer whether to use AI, but how to teach our children to use AI well. With AI, our education should no longer be about making children compete with AI in calculation and memory. Instead, we should help children maintain their curiosity. Curiosity is the source of computing power. The real gap in the AI era is not a technology gap. It's a gap in curiosity, imagination, creativity, judgment, and collaboration."

I think Ma is identifying something critical. When we worry about educational inequality in the AI age, we tend to focus on infrastructure and access. But he's pointing to a different kind of gap: the cultivation of uniquely human capabilities.

This has implications for how we invest in education. The priority might not be devices and connectivity. It might be nurturing the capacities that make AI a tool rather than a replacement.