中文
By Keith Lamb
The World Government Summit (WGS) is an annual event held in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), that brings together governments, thought leaders and industry experts to act as a hub for knowledge exchange on the subject of futurism and technological innovation. This type of future-orientated thinking that exists, in reciprocity to technological advancement is, as we shall see, becoming increasingly urgent.
Humanity's thinking and planning capacities, which contrast with the instinctual "now" have always made us future-oriented. This, combined with emerging problems, has served to advance technology – the ability to enhance the physical world to aid our "natural" state. While other animals, such as crows and primates, make tools and even engage in learning, humanity's ability to project into the past through history, which, in an expanded sense, is a technology built on innovations such as writing and archeological exploration, provides us with a record of past achievements to learn from and build the foundations for future technology.
Further driving technological advancement is our social connectivity, which requires deep cooperation. No individual, country, or civilization can stand technologically apart. We must pool our limited abilities to solve our shared dilemmas. The 2024 WGS entitled "Shaping Future Governments" with over 200 speakers, 120 government delegations, 85 organizations, and 23 ministerial meetings, understands this necessity of social connectivity to aid progress towards a shared technological vision for humanity.
Humanity is now on a precipice. With our expanded consciousness, derived from the aforementioned processes driving technology, we recognize our shared future and space on our planet. In turn, we must also acknowledge the existence of potential species-ending catastrophes, many of which have come about due to technological progress – nuclear war, climate change, and AI are but three.
Despite major challenges faced by mankind, there can be no fatalism – we are not only actors conditioned by history but also the architects of a possible brilliant future. Consequently, the WGS, focused on futurology must be applauded for its efforts to tackle emerging problems as it is the way we define these problems and the ideas used to tackle them that serve as the necessary handmaidens for physical technological solutions.
In a broader sense, just like history, ideas can also be viewed as a social technology essential for navigating our future. We see this in socialism with Chinese characteristics, an ideology highly entwined with physical technological advancement and social cooperation. It analyzes the past to build a shared future. Ideals of multipolarity, not only describe the world but also work as an ideological technology to thwart unipolar war, providing a democratic cooperative space for all civilizations. As another example, ecological civilization redefines humanity's role in nature, demoting us from dominator to co-participant, which necessitates green global technological solutions essential for our survival.
The 2024 WGS emerging from the Arab world further heralds multipolarity and thus it serves as a shared civilizational space for creating the right ideological and physical technological solutions. For example, the theme of sustainability and its critical role in long-term prosperity runs through the event. It serves to remind us that green technology must be made available to all especially the most vulnerable in the developing world who also contribute to and suffer from pollution affecting us all.
Another important issue is how to bridge the digital divide so that members from all societies are included in the rapid technological changes that confront us. Considering, that the basis of rapid technological progress is human ingenuity, problem-solving, and mass cooperation, all of humanity must have access to the technological dividends so that their potential is not wasted, ensuring they too can contribute to technological innovation. This means there can be no zero-sum technological barriers excluding developing nations.
One stand-out theme at the 2024 WGS is the global impact of AI and its transformative capacity on humanity. AI reminds us how fast technology can transform our world and impact society. It induces feelings of optimism where imagined future technologies can rapidly be created to solve humanity's problems.
Conversely, AI may also induce feelings of dread, not only in its possible weaponization capabilities but also in a possible future society where humanity is increasingly superfluous. Here the very premise of technological innovation, set out early in this piece – humanity's thinking and planning capacities, is supplanted by a technology that is ironically human to the core, in the sense that it represents our combined historical knowledge.
On one hand, we are presented with a zero-sum vision where a small elite could monopolize AI, which has been constructed by exploiting all of humanity's knowledge. Here, their class interests may clash with the majority who would be considered superfluous! On the other hand, we have a democratic future vision where AI decreases the working day, develops us to our full capacity, and raises individuals up the value chain – driving further technological innovation.
What future will we have? Based on the premise of the WGS, technology must be for humanity and the broader ecological sphere, of which we are part. We cannot fall into the fatalism of an inhuman future but continue on the course where we are the makers of a brilliant future.
Keith Lamb, a special commentator on current affairs for CGTN, is a University of Oxford graduate with a Master of Science in Contemporary Chinese Studies. His primary research interests are China's international relations and "socialism with Chinese characteristics."
