It wasn’t a language barrier issue though. And his English isn’t clumsy. It's that the actual content of what he said was ridiculous. It reminded me of the kind of BS Adam Neumann would say.
He didn't believe AI could be smarter than the smartest human (IIRC).
It's a different point of view.
You can disagree. But calling him an idiot makes you an asshole, tbh.
The interview was cringey as fuck because of his English skill. He couldn't deliver a joke properly like the joke about Alibaba Intelligence. Musk also didn't handle the joke well (not his fault.. he isn't a professional MC).
Jack Ma knows very well what is AI and all such things. You can look at Alibaba Group's hiring frenzy for AI talents as a signal.
In the end, Jack wants to be an approachable power figure to common (Chinese) people. He shows up in Alibaba's annual corp party wearing weird dresses and sing in front of 100k+ live audience. People call him the "Daddy Ma" in reference to his influence on their buying activities online.
He behaves in this fashion, which the so-called philosophy (or Daoism/Zen-like thinking) trumps the hard reasoning. That gives him an aura of an elevated figure above scientists, engineers, and alike.
The point is, powerful people listen to each other because of the power they wield. Must has to listen to Jack, because Jack can influence the Chinese government in a much more effective way than himself. If it was an actual AI expert on that stage, Must probably wont show much interests in that discussion anyway...
Guess how native English speakers sound when they're trying to speak Chinese?