Anwesha Dash, Pune
Sidelining cryptocurrency and bitcoin, AI (Artificial Intelligence) became the fulcrum of discussions in the World Economic Forum 2024, held at Davos. While world leaders conferred about the pros and cons, many big companies claimed that “AI is the future”.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) was held in Davos town of Switzerland. This organisation is an independent international body that self-claims its commitment towards improving the socio-economic state of the world through engaging discussions between various leaders. The WEF analyses the economy at a multitude of levels across global, regional, and social aspects.
For the last few years, given the promotion of bitcoin by Elon Musk and other business moguls, cryptocurrency was in the forefront of the discussions. Many companies even used this opportunity to promote their crypto-wares in this international forum. But this cryptocurrency struggled against the new fad in the market, AI.
Since the inception and subsequent popularity of ChatGPT and chatbots, world leaders, entrepreneurs, and common citizens alike; everyone has been interested in this new phenomenon. Therefore, the AI industry has seen a great deal of investments as well as competition. This was also the case in WEF this year.
Many companies promoted their AI-wares in the forum. One of them went as far as to term Artificial Intelligence as the “future”. This widespread popularity of AI has also made world leaders take cognizance of this current shift and formulate plans to adopt telemechanics. These discussions also led to taking note of potential challenges of AI.
One of the main challenges noted was employee lay-offs. Some of the biggest companies in the world, namely Google and Amazon, laid off thousands of employees. Therefore, companies cutting off jobs to invest more in AI is quite concerning when unemployment looms over many developing economies.
Another threat of AI discussed was the spread of misinformation and outright false claims. The WEF is concerned about the blurring lines of truth and falsehood when it comes to content generated by AI. Hence, it might pose a threat towards manipulating public views and opinions.
Nonetheless, no company wants to lag behind in the race of AI. Therefore, the investments and discussions around AI will continue. But whether it is going to be the new standard of the world or a passing trend like cryptocurrency is yet to be seen.