World Economic Forum Davos 2024 meeting concludes
The World Economic Forum (WEF) concludes today in Davos, Switzerland.
Under the theme of “Rebuilding Trust”, political and business leaders from across the globe met to discuss cooperation around AI, misinformation, climate, and diplomacy.
Amid the gathering of participants including Israeli president Isaac Herzog and Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, new conflicts around the world have made it difficult to rebuild trust in institutions, and the relevance of the WEF has been questioned by critics.
Some experts believe the WEF has a democratic deficit by failing to offer equal participation to all parties that partake in the event, while others believe that conversations could have been framed in terms of building peace rather than achieving security or looking beyond climate policy to broader debates about the ecological viability of the world order.
However, the WEF succeeded in highlighting a key global challenge that will likely affect the upcoming presidential and legislative elections in 2024: AI-powered misinformation. The WEF listed the issue as the leading short-term global risk and the fifth-biggest long-term risk, predicting that the legitimacy of newly elected governments may be undermined, resulting in unrest such as violent protests, hate crimes, or terrorism.
