Economic Forum: Technology at the forefront

It is primarily about talking about what has become the biggest challenge for the Western world today, next to geopolitics. Of course, it is artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, the scope of our presence in cyberspace. In connection with this, we need to keep up with building competitiveness, so as not to be left behind and to ensure economic development. Europeans have a lot to do here. Basing our potential, the Western world, on the capabilities of big tech is a far from sufficient response to what is emerging in the area of ​​new technologies in China, Asia or other most advanced countries. We must make this an absolutely central point of public debate, because if, for example, the Finnish government, signing an agreement with one of the big techs, declares: we will be the Silicon Valley in Europe, a month later the Swedish government does the same, concluding an agreement with another American big tech, two weeks later the French government, a year earlier the German and Polish governments, then it seems that this is not the way to go. Innovation, openness to new technologies, artificial intelligence, and threats from cyberspace will not be provided by American big tech. First, we must, at all costs, ensure that the discussion on this topic in Europe takes place with the participation of the widest possible group of experts, interested people, scientists, politicians. Second, we need to build our own potential, strengthen it, consolidate it, so that its management gives a chance for its better use. For now, work is being carried out at individual universities, sometimes in start-ups – and that’s it. We are taking part in the race, we and our partners.

Of course, I will give an example. Few people in Poland are aware that we have created an exceptional, unique in Europe e-prescription system. An e-citizen is also something extraordinary. Around such projects and achievements, we need to gather potential, expand them, use successes. We should rely less on the achievements of American big tech and more on what we can create in Europe, in Poland. We will either be participants in the process or just observers. In the latter case, we will very quickly experience negative consequences. We will not have modern products, we will not be competitive on a global scale. We are constantly fighting to maintain the unique position of the Western world in the economy.

The forum’s slogan is a conversation about people and with the participation of people who can see challenges, opportunities and threats. The time has come for new leaders, who are people in public administration, managers in corporations, in Poland, in Western countries or in the United States. And “together” means within the Western world. European-American cooperation has brought both sides several decades of uninterrupted development. In our part of the world, this is unique. We should continue this.

We have signed an agreement with the Ministry of Digital Affairs, the University of Warsaw, the AGH University of Science and Technology in Krakow, the technical universities in Krakow, Poznań and Wrocław, to prepare a series of several dozen debates in Karpacz this year on all the challenges and threats related to the presence of humans in cyberspace and artificial intelligence. We want to transform this agreement into permanent cooperation, so that wherever possible, we can use the potential that scientists have already developed, so that we can respond to threats faster than in other countries.

Today, everyone wants to be the Silicon Valley of Europe. But not everyone will succeed.

The July outage at Microsoft and its scope show that the transformation process associated with new technologies must also be better secured, slower. If we lost control over it, it could lead to disaster.

It was inevitable, primarily because the events of recent years are a revolution. In the book “The Paradox of Globalization”, Dani Rodrik, a professor at Harvard, writes about the third wave, the technological revolution, after the agricultural and industrial revolution. The changes are unimaginable. Moore’s Law (Gordon, co-founder of Intel – ed.) says that the installed power on a single chip doubles every year. And it has been relevant since the 1960s. At the end of the 1940s, IBM executives estimated that the demand for computers, then as big as cabinets, was no more than 500 pieces worldwide. Not so many years have passed and we have billions of such devices, with many times greater computing power. And this is the best illustration of the change that has taken place, the revolution. The computing power of a smartphone is greater than the computer that guided the spacecraft landing on the moon in the 1960s.

A conversation about the future without these threads would be incomplete, devoid of reasonable, rational thinking. Everything that is happening in the world of technology today determines what our world will look like in 5, 10, 15 and more years. Technologies, technology and once again “Technology, stupid!”

Geopolitical changes are the determinant of processes in recent times. The pandemic and war have accelerated the end of globalization in its first, grand edition. We are moving from open globalization to globalization taking place in bubbles. The process of consolidation and cooperation will take place within these areas.

Another thing is the pursuit of ensuring our own security. The concept that in Europe we can build it together with the Russians has proven irrational, ineffective. The time for free-riding for Europe is over, we need to significantly increase our defense spending. Without this money, the Americans will not provide us with security, that is obvious. We need to use all our reserves for this purpose.

And one last thing: Western democracies must seek new solutions in social policy. The model in which the state guaranteed certain solutions is exhausting its possibilities. There will be more and more retirees, people requiring care – medical procedures are becoming more complicated and more expensive. Europe, in terms of demographics, has tried to solve this problem by increasing immigration. People whose work would support those receiving benefits, for example from social insurance or pensions, were supposed to arrive; to fill the gaps in a situation where Western societies have achieved a certain level of prosperity. Except that currently they do not want to have children either. The gap in subsequent European countries is widening, we need more and more people to work. We have to ask ourselves what other model can guarantee Europeans some comfort, security, especially those in old age? It seems to me – I do not see any other possibility – that the family must be the basis for solutions creating security in this area. A multi-generational family in which children take care of their parents.

It seems that all those observing the problems related to the functioning of the pension systems of the Western world are increasingly realizing this. The system in which the state is the guarantor of certain benefits is going bankrupt before our eyes. There are fewer and fewer people working, and more and more people who are not working. Pension systems in all Western countries are indebted, generate a huge public debt, and fundamentally affect the efficiency and competitiveness of the European economy. Every product in Poland will be burdened with various types of benefits for pension, social and health insurance. This means that the state monopoly in this area must change.

However, I would like to emphasize that today the absolutely fundamental challenge is technology, the revolution that we are witnessing. In the first dimension, geopolitical changes, in the second, technological changes.

First of all, because of how many debates there will be on artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, functioning in cyberspace. In this respect, it will be an absolutely unique place this year. But also because of other debates, for example, for the first time on such a scale we will be participants in a conversation with various intellectuals, analysts, researchers, authors of dozens of books, which we will show as particularly important in relation to the discussions that are taking place today. This does not happen at any other meeting as large as the Economic Forum. There will also be many cultural events, from exhibitions, concerts, through film presentations, to sightseeing in Karpacz and Lower Silesia.

We are about to have a conversation about not only seeing positive effects in the technological revolution and not treating human development in such a way that it has to be linear, like on a highway leading only forward. Because it may turn out that as a result of various decisions that governments are constantly making, development may collapse. I will also point out an example of challenges related to the implementation of the Green Deal in Europe, which carries many unknowns. It is worth maintaining a healthy critical attitude towards various decisions, so that irreversible damage does not occur. A policy such as the Green Deal should be conducted by using various instruments, but without setting rigid boundaries, dates that are to be anchors, symbols. Because it is always the case with them that they are discredited very quickly.

As every year, a very interesting discussion awaits us.

Organizer