World Economic Forum – 2016

Editor’s Note:
The annual World Economic Forum generates a good number of strategic announcements, new research studies and commentary. We provide additional selected press releases below – see initial aggregation in last week’s edition.

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Bank CEOs and Policy-makers Join Taskforce to Study Future of Global Financial System at Davos
News 26 Jan 2016
:: Mark Carney, Governor, Bank of England and Chairman of the Financial Stability Board (FSB), and Professor Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum, announced on the 26th January the creation of a high-level Taskforce to address the future of the global financial system
:: The Taskforce, which met for the first time in Davos, comprises eight senior decision-makers from Citigroup, BlackRock, HSBC, Bank of America, Reserve Bank of India, IMF, Chinese University of Hong Kong
:: The group will focus on the inclusion of emerging market economies in the global financial system, technology-enabled innovation and the economic cost-benefit of post-crisis regulatory reforms as outlined here

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A Key Challenge of the Fourth Industrial Revolution: Staying Human – and Humane
News 23 Jan 2016
:: Rapid technological advances, including the proliferation of artificial intelligence, challenge individuals to maintain their essential humanity
:: More than 2,500 business, government and civil society leaders from over 100 countries participated in the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2016, which drew to a close

Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, 23 January 2016 – As the world surges into the Fourth Industrial Revolution – a new age of interactive technologies, artificial intelligence and automation – a key challenge for individuals will be to understand and retain their very essence, their humanity, leading scientists and thought leaders on society and law said in the closing panel session of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2016. Being able to master the technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution must be an essential part of that, the panellists agreed. Said Henry T. Greely, the Deane F. and Kate Edelman Johnson Professor of Law at Stanford University in the US: “All of us need to begin to understand and grapple with how we want to shape these technologies.”

“We are competing with artificial intelligence,” asserted Meeting Co-Chair Amira Yahyaoui, Founder and Chair of citizens action group Al Bawsala in Tunisia and a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Shaper community of leaders in their twenties. “We really have to show we are the good ones. So the discussion of ethics and value has never been more essential than it is today.” Justine Cassell, Associate Dean, Technology, Strategy and Impact, in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University in the US, countered: “I don’t think of robots as competitors. I think of them as collaborators to help us do what we wish to do but can’t do alone and help us to be part of a larger community.”

Robots and artificial intelligence will force people to hone human skills that were much more important generations ago in the days of very low tech. “Empathy, respect – those skills will be effective for the workplace of the future,” Cassell reckoned. “It is through comparison with robots that we will know what it is to be human.”…

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Improving the Outlook for Science Depends on Basic Research and Better Use of Talent
News 23 Jan 2016
:: Sustaining basic research requires more support from business, academia and government
:: Improving opportunities for women and interdisciplinary connections can better leverage existing science knowledge

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Cautious Optimism for 2016 Global Economy
News 23 Jan 2016
:: Despite a new year marked by volatility, global growth will be modest and uneven
:: Modest optimism is accompanied by significant downside risks
:: Monetary policy divergence is not a major concern
:: Markets overreacted to China’s transition

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Redefine the Future by Using Technology to Create Opportunities and Bridge Gaps
News 23 Jan 2016
:: The central challenge in the Fourth Industrial Revolution is whether technology can be harnessed for systems change and drive progress towards a zero-carbon, zero-poverty world
:: Short-termism and the narrow shareholder approach should be replaced by management and decision-making that take into account the long view and the broader interests of all stakeholders