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Let's talk about US-China relations.

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Obviously, when you talk about the US and China for businesses, it's going to be a

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new paradigm in which everyone operates.

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It's going to be a certain degree of instability, lack of clarity sometimes.

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But if we set aside the sort of vagaries of their domestic politics, set aside US domestic

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the challenges that China may be going through.

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You've seen this for many years already.

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How do you foresee a long-term sort of stable situation between the US and China that at

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least the business sector, governments, even the people can start preparing for?

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What's the likelihood?

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The two economies are so intertwined, and I think we all have to work to create situations

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where the tensions do not span out of control.

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But if I come to the fundamental issue, it's not so much the question which country has

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a larger economy.

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I think the question is who masters the fourth industrial revolution?

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Because it is industrial superiority, innovative superiority.

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Just think of artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and so on, which actually provides

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power to a country.

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So what we will see is a race for leadership in the fourth industrial revolution.

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You see also other countries forming their own sort of separate alliances, allegiances,

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clubs amongst themselves.

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Even within, in Geneva, you have plurilateral sort of groupings.

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Some sort of forming their own little circles of influence.

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Do you see this as something positive, as sort of a development in global geopolitics?

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It's really multipolar because you have some middle states like Saudi Arabia, Indonesia,

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and of course India exercising great influence on the global situation.

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Saudi Arabia thanks to its energy reserves.

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India thanks to the fact that it is the fastest growing economy at the moment.

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You have, I would say, also the industry, industrial powers.

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You could argue today that some of the companies like Google, Microsoft, and so on are truly

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multinational power factors.

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So it's a very complex world.

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And it's not a very stable world because we are now witnessing a kind of dynamic system

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which is constantly changing.

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And I should also add, by the way, to the power factors, small countries.

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I would argue that in the world of tomorrow it's not the big fish eating the small fish,

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but the fast fish eating the slow fish.

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So you have countries like Singapore, like I would add Switzerland, or Israel, and so

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on, playing also an essential role in the global system.

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We have to confront a very fragmented and I would say to a certain extent turbulent

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system because those countries compete not only in economic terms.

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They compete having different values, having different systems.

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So the world is relatively full of complexities and certainly also uncertainties.

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Now what we have to do in order to stick together is to look at those issues where

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we have really global interdependence.

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If we do not cooperate we will have a lose-lose situation.

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I'm thinking, for example, at the environmental challenge which we have, I think at migration

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challenges and so on and so on.

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And we should focus our efforts of collaborations on those touch points.

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What's your advice to the young Singaporeans, the young Qataris, the young Swiss who see

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this fast fish phenomenon?

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Is there something of a mindset shift that they need to have to be able to compete,

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to be able to eat the slow fish?

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Yes, I think to embrace change.

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What we see now, and we will come back to it, is this complex world and also now the

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new factor of the technological revolution, particularly artificial intelligence.

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People have difficulty to understand and what we see is a certain fear of the future.

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I think it's the first time in global history that people are so pessimistic about the future.

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Now my advice would be embrace change.

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Change will be a constant factor of our lives and those people who see change as an opportunity

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and not as a threat will succeed.

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There are some people who also fear or think of this as a fundamental transition point

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in human history, this move into AI.

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Do you see any prospect of larger global cooperation, setting guidelines, guardrails?

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I feel that artificial intelligence is not only a game changer for the future, but also

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for business.

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It could be a game changer for societies.

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We have to make all the efforts to use the tremendous opportunities offered by artificial

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intelligence, but there are social and as I mentioned, existential challenges.

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Social challenges are for example in the capability to influence elections in a much stronger

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way and public opinion in general compared to what we have seen in the past, which is

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a danger for democracy.

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We have the impact on the workforce.

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A study which the World Economic Forum did shows that about one quarter of jobs will

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disappear or be replaced by artificial intelligence and one other quarter will require reskilling

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and upskilling.

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And suddenly you have the existential question because first you have the shift of power

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from governance to business and you have the questions that the whole system may go

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out of control.

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So what the World Economic Forum has done, we created an artificial intelligence governance

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alliance.

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We have in the alliance, we have cooperating all the big companies, Google, Microsoft,

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Meta, IBM and so on.

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And on the other hand, we have integrated into those efforts also the G7 effort under

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the leadership of Japan.

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We work together with the US, we work together with the European Union and we will have in

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November an artificial intelligence.

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It will be our second meeting with all the experts on our campus in San Francisco as

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a preparation for the next annual meeting in Davos, which we will make a true global

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summit to look at all the aspects of artificial intelligence and also to develop based on

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proposals the necessary safeguards which we need and which require global collaboration.

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We cannot have different safeguards in different, let's say global regions.

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Are you confident that the collaboration between businesses and between business and

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government is something that can sort of progress as rapidly as needed because the technology

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is developing extremely rapidly?

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But just initial sense, do you think there's room for optimism?

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No, you need to have a global collaboration.

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Do you think there's room for optimism?

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No, you need a kind of resetting of government business relations because in the traditional

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way, governments looked at a new technology and set the necessary rules for the further

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development of the technology.

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But here, the technology is moving so fast and it's also very difficult to understand

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really the technology.

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So the danger is governments will be too late in creating the necessary borders and the

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borderlines around the technology and business which is in a competitive battle will just

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move ahead and that means the ghost will leave the bottle.

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So we have here to put much more emphasis on self-regulation and that's what the World

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Economic Forum is doing to make sure that the self-regulation is also, maybe sometimes

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afterwards, approved and endorsed by governments and civil society.

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We are, everyone knows, soon to be a super-aged society.

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Many societies in Asia as well, Japan and Korea, are moving in that direction.

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What's your sense in how do we change the narrative from talking about longevity and

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an age society, from sort of a slightly negative challenge kind of narrative to a more

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positive one?

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We should not just speak about longevity, but we should speak about healthy old age.

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And this starts, in my opinion, at an early age.

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We should even introduce in schools the teaching, I would say, of health literature, of the

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literacy, because definitely we have today in many parts of the world and in many sectors

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of population, we have unhealthy behavior which afterwards have a big impact not only

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on health insurances, but also on the quality of life.

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Our effort should be not only to prolong life, but to make sure that we have as long as possible

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a healthy life.

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And this starts with health literacy, to know what are actually the factors which make

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your life healthier.

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A second element is the question of retirement.

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We created this retirement age principle when people had much more money, and they were

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much shorter life expectancies.

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I think we should be very flexible related to the integration of older people into the

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work process.

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And finally, I think it's a question also, what is the meaning of life?

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What mission do people have when they get older?

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Do they feel idle or do they still have a mission?

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I would say my own most important resource for being active is this notion of having

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a mission in life.

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Thank you, Professor Schwab.

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Thank you very much.

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Thank you.

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