Leaders gather at elite meeting in Davos, prioritizing AI, climate change, and conflict

The temperature of the Earth is increasing, just like the escalating conflict in the Middle East. The global economy and Ukraine’s defense against Russia are struggling. The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to greatly impact our lives. The list of global priorities has expanded for this year’s World Economic Forum gathering in Davos, Switzerland, where business, political, and other influential figures will convene from Tuesday to Friday.

More than 60 heads of state and government, including Israeli President Isaac Herzog and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, are heading to the city for both public appearances and closed-door talks. They are among more than 2,800 participants, including researchers, artists and leaders of international organizations.

The gathering is mostly ambitious—think business innovation, goals for peace and security cooperation, or life-changing improvements in healthcare—and a place for decision makers from many different fields and industries to connect.

It is also regularly seen by critics as a symbol of the yawning between rich and poor: Switzerland’s Young Socialists staged a rally on Sunday to cast the forum and brand participants as “the richest and most powerful, responsible for today’s wars and crises.”

“Davos is easily mocked. But these days it’s hard to get people together in the same room to talk about shared global issues, and the value of face-to-face conversations is very real, as the COVID-19 pandemic showed,” said Bronwen Maddox, Director of Chatham. House think tank, said in an email.

At the annual meeting in Davos, the following points must be taken into account:

THE MILITARY CENTER

While Davos is usually the big picture, regional conflict can cast a long shadow – as the war in Ukraine did a year ago, prompting organizers to exclude a Russian delegation.

This year, Israel’s three-month war with Hamas in Gaza and US and UK airstrikes against Houthi militants in Yemen, who have fired missiles into Red Sea shipping lanes, loom large.

Israeli President Herzog, whose job is more ceremonial than Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s, will attend the Davos session on Thursday, along with the prime ministers of Qatar, Jordan and Lebanon.

“Humanitarian press conference on Gaza” gets half an hour on Tuesday.

WHERE AI?

The theme of AI as a “driving force for the economy and society” is a testament to how the technology has received a large and growing focus at Davos, receiving around 30 separate sessions.

The dizzying emergence of OpenAI’s ChatGPT over a year ago, and competitors since then, have brought the power, promise and prediction of AI into the wider public eye. Sam Altman, head of OpenAI, is in Davos along with top executives from Microsoft, which helped his company’s rise.

Artificial intelligence in education, the transparency of technology, its ethics and impact on creativity are all part of the menu – and the Davos Promenade is swimming in advertisements and displays referring to the new technology.

Organizers of the forum warned last week that the threat posed by AI-generated disinformation, such as the creation of synthetic content, is the world’s biggest short-term threat.

AND WHERE ARE THE DEMOCRACIES?

Such misinformation may increase this year, with one session exploring the threat of “bots and plots” in democracies.

According to the organizers of the forum, elections will be held this year in countries with a combined population of 4.2 billion people, and many of them will be holding elections. (Few doubt that Russian President Vladimir Putin will get another term.)

It comes against the background when we talk about a new cold war, the deepening of the gap between dictatorships – or at least autocracies – and democratic countries.

The dialogue between Chinese Premier Li Qiang and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Tuesday highlights the contrast. President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, will speak later in the day.

French President Emmanuel Macron and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will speak on Wednesday, as will Argentina’s new president, Javier Milei, a libertarian who has already announced plans to cut the government workforce.

There was already buzz in the corridors of Davos about whether former US President Donald Trump – who made two trips to Davos during his tenure – could be re-inaugurated this time next year as a result of November’s election.

Biden was once a regular at Davos, but has not attended as president.

LET’S TRY AGAIN TO SAVE THE PLANET

Of all the lofty aspirations of Davos recently, the perennial one has been the search for creative and promising ways to combat climate change.

This year is no different: top climate scientists around the world reported this month that global average temperatures obliterated record highs last year, raising the level of urgency.

John Kerry, who is stepping down as Biden’s climate advisor, will participate in a panel discussion on a US-backed initiative that aims to involve the private sector in the development of low-carbon technology.

“I would like – on climate – the WEF annual meeting to show that we have concrete building blocks to rebuild trust,” said India’s Arunabha Ghosh, CEO of the Energy, Environment and Water Council. think tank.

Ghosh, who is expected to chair Kerry’s panel on Wednesday, noted the need for investment in the global south, “where the fight against climate change is being done” and to bring emerging markets and developing countries more into global action. value chains.

He also suggested that rich countries should avoid protectionist impulses that could exclude developing countries.

“If we use climate action as a way to raise protectionist barriers, I think we have another reason for the loss of confidence,” Ghosh said.

Also read the top stories:

Disturbing! The artist who shook the cultural world with a haunting image of a woman created by artificial intelligence has decided that he has had enough of the new technology for now. It’s very addictive, he says. Know the blow-by-blow explanation of all this.

How will artificial intelligence disrupt working life? Artificial intelligence raises serious concerns about jobs, but it also creates new jobs, says the director of Adecco. “Artificial intelligence is probably the biggest disruption and revolution we’ve seen in decades,” he says. Read all about it here. If you enjoyed reading this article, please share it with your friends and family.

The AI models were “highly context dependent”! AI-powered prediction models made accurate predictions in the experiment in which they were developed, but gave “random predictions” outside of it, the study says. Dive here. Was it interesting? Go ahead and share it with everyone you know.