In all, about 60 heads of state and 800 CEOs were in attendance among a total of 2,800 participants, as they discussed wide-ranging issues — from climate change to economic slowdowns — at both formal and informal gatherings.
Here are some of the top quotes from the event pertaining to artificial intelligence and what lies in store for us:
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella
“There seems to be a broad consensus that is emerging [around AI]. The world is coming together and saying we need new technology, we need some guardrails and we need norms of how we deploy this technology. That combination of private innovation with a safety-first approach to engineering and regulation to ensure that the broad societal benefits are amplified and the unintended consequences are dampened, would be the way forward,” said Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft.
AFPOpenAI CEO Sam Altman
“It’s a good sign that even at AI’s current, extremely limited capability levels, lots of people have found ways to get value out of it and also understand the limitations…There’s a harder question than the technical one, which is who gets to decide what the values (governing AI) are. That’s a big societal question,” said Sam Altman, CEO, OpenAI.
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Ruth Porat, CFO, Alphabet
Ruth Porat, CFO, Alphabet
“AI has the potential to be the great equaliser. We have opportunities ahead of us to address pain points (in healthcare and climate) and to address the sustainable development goals,” said Ruth Porat, CFO, Alphabet.
TIMESOFINDIA.COMArvind Krishna, CEO, IBM
“India will be at the forefront of AI deployment. Given the scale of India’s data sets, it will be remarkably useful. We are a firm believer that India will be a massive beneficiary of AI. The workforce that is going to deploy AI will come from India,” said Arvind Krishna, CEO, IBM.
AgenciesNeal Mohan, CEO, YouTube
“A third of humanity is going to go to the polls in one way or the other this year. The advent of this [generative AI] technology will lead to amazing things but will also be a tool that will be in the hands of bad actors,” said Neal Mohan, CEO, YouTube.
AFPMarc Benioff, CEO, Salesforce
“All the training data has been stolen. Let the content creators get paid fairly for their work. That bridge has not yet been crossed and that’s a mistake by the AI companies,” said Marc Benioff, CEO, Salesforce, and owner of Time magazine.
AFPJulie Sweet, CEO, Accenture
“AI will create a lot of new jobs but you won’t be able to take the current people and put them in these jobs unless governments and companies partner together on reskilling,” said Julie Sweet, CEO, Accenture.