When Fudan University associate professor Jiang Changjian recited a poem produced by DeepSeek as an impromptu response to history professor Meng Man's remarks about the challenge of teaching in the digital age, Meng couldn't help chuckling.

"The poem wasn't that well-written, but the tone was certainly lofty," she quips, eliciting laughter from the audience at the Wuyi Forum in Wuyishan, Nanping city, Fujian province.

Her lighthearted remark hinted at a deeper truth: while technology can mimic form and tone, it often falls short of capturing the depth of human creativity and emotion.

In the digital age, students have vast amounts of information at their fingertips, but this abundance of knowledge doesn't necessarily translate into true understanding or wisdom, Meng says.