A healthy dose of reality

Has there been a shift in the normally rosy outlook of the World Economic Forum ?

This is the organisation that is “committed to improving the state of the world”. It places its faith in humanity’s ability to better itself and overcome challenges through a combination of dialogue, co-operation, technological innovation and public-private partnership.

Yet in Dubai, at the annual meeting of the WEF’s Global Future Councils (GFC), Professor Klaus Schwab , founder and (still) executive chairman of the 53-year-old organisation, told the opening session that “for the first time, humanity could destroy itself.”?

Schwab, now 86, went on to list threats to the world from nuclear warfare, environmental crises and technological developments.

Given the state of the world, especially from a viewpoint in the fractured Middle East, his new-found pessimism may just be regarded as a healthy dose of reality and, as aides pointed out afterwards, should be seen in the context of his earlier, more optimistic comments.

Schwab had called for a show of hands from the 500 or so people in the plenary hall on the proposition “the future will get better”, and – unusually, he said – the UAE crowd showed a narrow majority in support of the idea of ongoing progress.

Nonetheless, the belief that humanity is under a triple threat, delivered by Schwab in response to a question from Mohammad Al Gergawi , the UAE’s minister of cabinet affairs, caused some sharp intakes of breath in the hall.

At a later press event, Mirek Dusek , the WEF’s managing director, explained that the Forum’s role was even more relevant in a “more competitive and contested world”, especially since the?Russian invasion of Ukraine, when the nuclear threat in particular has become tangible.

The GFC meeting is a regular event on the WEF calendar, and has been held in the UAE in various forms for the past 15 years. In WEF-speak, its aim is to “break down silos, foster cross-sector dialogue, and build the multi-sector partnerships needed to sustainably address the complex issue facing the world”.

In fact, it is a big brainstorming event designed to help set the agenda for the WEF’s flagship annual meeting in Davos in January, combined with a bit of autumn sun and Dubai sightseeing for the (mainly) north-western European attendees.

It is effective in both aims. Aftrer trips to the Burj Khalifa, Dubai’s Museum of the Future and the Al Bastakiya cultural district, attendees immersed themselves in 30 hubs, each dedicated to one key aspect of the WEF agenda, ranging from autonomous mobility to net zero living, and everything in between.

If you stand in the middle of the hall where these hubs are located, I swear you can feel the buzz of the sheer intellectual power being generated in each little unit.

Apart from Schwab and Al Gergawi, the star of the opening day was Omar Sultan AlOlama , the UAE minister for artificial intelligence.

Harking back to a famous comment from the UAE leadership, he told the gathering: “Exporting the last barrel of oil means that we want to embark on a new age,” and wondered whether he should change his official tile to “minister for the intelligent age” – using a phrase that is to be the theme for Davos 2025.

There was much discussion about the need for some system of global supervision and regulation of AI, presumably to head off the threat Schwab had highlighted.

Urgent issues

Sessions talked, too, of the need to address other urgent issues, such as sustainability and the energy transition, cybersecurity, food and water supply challenges and responsible investing.

But, apart from one hub session on “the future of geopolitics”, the menacing reality of the year-long?crisis in the Middle East?barely got a mention on any of the many podiums in the Madinat conference complex.

However, it was the main topic of conversation everywhere else in the event. Nervous Europeans and Americans tried to get an inside briefing from UAE residents on what was “really going on” in the region.

We all pretended to be experts, of course, but in reality, their guess is as good as ours.

Maybe Professor Schwab knows something the rest of us don’t.

Frank Kane is Editor-at-Large of AGBI and an award-winning business journalist. He acts as a consultant to the Ministry of Energy of Saudi Arabia and is a media adviser to First Abu Dhabi Bank of the UAE