Klaus Schwab, chairman of the World Economic Forum (WEF), during an event in Dubai called on world governments to work together and control new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) to decide the fate of humanity, while contradicting the latest warning by Musk case.
In 2015, Schwab wrote a book called The Fourth Industrial Revolution, in which he mentioned more than 20 technologies that will change the world, such as cryptocurrencies. “All of these technologies have become a reality,” he said at the world government summit in Dubai this week, adding that humanity is in the “exponential phase” of technological transformation.
Schwab named technologies like AI, metaverse, space technology and synthetic biology that will change the world. “Our lives in 10 years will be completely different, very heavily impacted. And whoever somehow masters these technologies will be the master of the world,” said Schwab.
The engineering of organisms to develop unique purposes and abilities not naturally available is called synthetic biology. It involves altering the organism’s genetic code by infusing it with another creature’s DNA, a radical advancement in genome editing. The WEF is a proponent of the methodology.
“You can’t catch up with the new technologies. You have to be a front runner or you’re out on the losing side.” One of the main concerns is designing “necessary policies” to ensure technology “serves” humanity.
“Change is happening so fast in our world, and we’re moving even faster. How can we make sure that individuals, every citizen, don’t feel overwhelmed by change because they can’t really understand what’s going on?” Schwab said, adding that people who don’t understand change become anxious and can react negatively.
The WEF chief urged governments to “have the ambition and vision to show that these technologies can serve good”.
Schwab also fueled fears that new technologies could spiral out of control. “If we don’t move forward together on a global scale, if you don’t formulate and shape the necessary policies together, they (technologies) will elude our power.”
Danger of too much intergovernmental cooperation
The WEF chief’s call for close cooperation between governments around the world to shape the future of humanity stands in stark contrast to that of industrialist Elon Musk, who warned of a “single world government” at the world government summit on Wednesday.
“We should be a little worried that we’re actually becoming too much of a single world government… If I may say, we want to avoid creating a civilizational risk by – frankly, that might sound a bit strange – working together too much.” between governments,” Musk said.
He pointed out that several civilizations have risen and fallen throughout history. However, these events did not lead to the downfall of all mankind, since they were separate civilizations separated by great distances.
“It sounds a little strange, but we want a certain level of civilizational diversity so that if something goes wrong in one part of civilization, everything doesn’t collapse and humanity keeps moving forward,” warned the entrepreneur.
“Role model” China, stakeholder ideology
In his speech at the world government summit, Schwab did not detail what system he thought the world should adopt in the future.
But back in November, during an interview with Chinese state television network CGTN, Schwab had called China a “role model” for other nations, despite the fact that the communist regime in Beijing is known for suppressing freedom of expression, acting openly and promoting human rights abuses and the suppression of fundamental freedoms. “The Chinese model is certainly a very attractive model for a number of countries,” he said at the time.
In Dubai, Schwab also promoted his “stakeholder” ideology, according to which governments bring “directive power”, corporations “innovative power”, civil society “concerned power”, science “the power of truth” and the media “critical power”. Dimension in this dialogue”, everyone is working on “shaping the future together”.
In a September 2021 op-ed in The Epoch Times, John Mac Ghlionn, a researcher and essayist, pointed out that the push for ideologies like “stakeholder capitalism” sounds similar to Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s notion of “shared prosperity.” , which is said to be aimed at eliminating the wealth gap.
“Both purport to benefit the wider society, particularly the most vulnerable, and both purport to be vehicles for positive change. In reality, they are of no use to anyone except those who already have too much power. While it may sound obvious, power is a finite resource,” Ghlionn wrote.
“The more its governments have, the less its citizens have. The same goes for the control. Similar to ‘shared prosperity’, stakeholder capitalism involves giving more control to those who already control society.”
