The World Governments Summit, held in Dubai Feb 11-13, is the “other Davos”. It is well attended by Prime Ministers and CEOs from around the world.
The theme this year was “Shaping the Future.” Here are reflections on what I heard in the sessions.
We are responsible for teaching AI its values
Elon Musk, CEO, Tesla+, said that “AI is like a super genius child. What values do we teach it?” Leaders must articulate the values important to society on a regular basis. If we don’t, the only other tool at our disposal is regulation.
Elon Musk
How AI delivers insights will lead to new ways to think and innovate
Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle, said, “AI provides us with the ability to discover new things not possible before.” The National University of Australia obviously agrees with this statement, since they featured an exhibit, called Dragonfly Thinking. Basically, AI-driven information will come at us from new directions, which can stimulate ideas we may never have thought of before. Our brainpower will benefit from AI.
Larry Ellison
Cultural learning is a two-way street
Brian Niccol, CEO of Starbucks, discussed how we should “innovate in both directions and experience other cultures via beverages.” Great reminder that learning comes from all locations, not just one (often headquarters). Brian also mentioned that the combination of “loneliness and talking past each other means we need a place to reconnect and support each other.” Let’s hope Starbucks can play a positive role in the emotional health of many.
Brian Niccol
Improving health is a responsibility we all share
Pascal Soriot, CEO of AstraZeneca, made the point that 75% of deaths are due to non-communicable diseases and are mostly preventable.” We play an important role in living a healthy life. Separately, when asked about governments, he provided insight that made many smile – “government is like a management team that changes every three years with new direction.” Sounds about right.
Pascal Soriot
Gaming is a powerful community (and teacher)
David Baszucki, CEO of Roblox, introduced a new Roblox stack in Arabic and emphasized that Roblox is “a great way to learn to code and have a place to build and commune.” Learning is occurring in new places and differently for new generations.
David Baszucki
AI is changing how we interact with our devices
Akash Palkhiwala, CFO and COO, Qualcomm, said that “AI is the new UI (user interface).” It impacts the look and feel of voice/text, photo, vision, sensors, and touch.” We interact differently although we rarely pay attention to how our habits are changing.
Akash Palkhiwala
AI models will become more specific to industries and functions
Arvind Krishna, IBM CEO, said “by 2027, more than 50% of models will be domain specific.” This means those models will have specific knowledge and will be highly tuned to each well-defined area. Future models may be “pharmaceuticals” or “biotechnology” or “communications” or pick the topic. These domain-specific models will know the rules, guidelines, and needs of each area.
Arvind Krishna, IBM CEO
AI will build the “pipes” that pull data together
Larry Ellison described the importance of getting disparate databases to speak to each other via “pipes.” The pipes connect our data sources and make it possible to access information that is impenetrable today. Digital pipes are a great way to visualize the infrastructure that must be created, so that we can build the data lake, pond or puddle important to our team.
Larry Ellison, Oracle
And a fun fact -- Elon explained that being underground (preferably in a tunnel built by The Boring Company) is the safest place to be during an earthquake. That I did not know.
On the sidelines, I heard a profound statement – a major shift occurs when a new interaction paradigm is built. Facebook’s engagement features, such as the “Like” icon, changed how we interact. So did the shift to the mobile phone. Or the rise of gaming. It can be a feature or a device or something we haven’t thought of yet. I wonder what’s next.