There is no doubt that the World Economic Forum (WEF), also known in the international media as the Davos Forum in reference to the beautiful Swiss city that hosts the annual meetings held in late January each year, has become one of the most prestigious, as well as one of the most influential, forums in the world. It has become attractive to a large number of world leaders, politicians, prominent entrepreneurs, thinkers, intellectuals and scholars, famous media and press figures, scientists and researchers, outstanding artists and athletes. Usually the Davos Forum focuses on a broad range of issues. However, it also selects a limited number of subjects of paramount importance to which it attaches special attention and more detailed discussions. Among the subjects chosen for the January 2019 session was artificial intelligence (AI) and its applications. The choice of AI as a priority subject was expected for a number of reasons. The first relates to the nature of AI itself and the ever-growing importance it has been occupying at the top of the agenda of international relations over the past few years. All countries, whether developed, emerging, developing or least developed, have demonstrated a deep interest in the subject of AI. Of equal significance is the fact that different sectors of the populations of almost all countries of the world today have a stake in AI, including their political, economic, cultural and scientific elites. A second set of reasons relates to the Davos Forum and its founder and chairman, the German engineer and economist Klaus Schwab. The latter has shown a deep interest in successive revolutionary transformations in scientific research and technological innovation, as well as the impacts of these on human history. This was clearly demonstrated in his recent book “The Fourth Industrial Revolution,” which was originally published in English and then translated into many other languages, including Arabic. Although it is true to say that AI together with its products and applications has been with us for some time, it is equally true to say that its presence has been more or less confined to scientists, scholars, researchers and those directly related to scientific research and technological development. However, over the past few years AI has evolved as a centre of gravity for all types of stakeholders, including governments, the business community, the intelligentsia and the media. It has entered what we could call the public arena, and it is being discussed by those who do not have any particular technical knowledge of the subject. In parallel to the above-mentioned developments, AI has itself become very complicated and diverse, and it has clearly penetrated a wide variety of fields of specialisation and areas of interest. As a result, it was only to be expected that an increasing number of international, regional and sub-regional organisations would argue that their mandate included one or more aspects of the AI revolution. There is more than enough room for these organisations to contribute to the growing debates and discussions on AI. As was the case with the major qualitative transformations in science and technology that have taken place earlier in history since both the European Renaissance in the period between the 14th and the 17th centuries and the First Industrial Revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries, AI has shown that it has the capacity to influence many aspects of human life, including people's daily lives, and not only in the developed or industrially advanced countries. This influence has meant the introduction of major, and occasionally shocking, changes in legal and legislative environments, political structures, modes of production, patterns of social relations, prevailing cultural paradigms, including value systems and sets of habits and customs, as well as ideological and philosophical frames of reference. There is no doubt that AI will have further consequences on the labour market. However, there have been debates on the nature, volume and direction of these. There have been a number of varying, or even contradictory, views in this respect. There is an agreement that the applications and products of AI will lead to a restructuring of the labour market at the global level. Some estimates go to the extent of forecasting that more than 60 per cent of the jobs that exist today could disappear over the coming three decades. While new jobs that do not exist today will be created, it is still expected that most of these will probably have specific professional and technical requirements that will determine who can compete for them. Some economists have argued that with the expansion and advances that have taken place in AI more and more people will become unemployed, both in absolute and relative terms, far more than the newcomers who fill the jobs created by the applications and products of AI. Others have argued, as was the case for the previous cycles of innovation that have taken place since the First Industrial Revolution, that there will be a reallocation of jobs in different sectors of the economy rather than a reduction in the overall number of jobs available, however. It is too early to take sides in such debates or to pass final, or even tentative, judgements in this regard. Humanity needs more time to be able to anticipate, on a scientific and objective basis, the full scope of the impact of AI not only in the scientific and technological domains, but also and perhaps even more importantly in the social, economic, cultural and political fields. 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The writer is a commentator.
