The opening address was delivered by Founder and Chairman of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Professor Klaus Schwab. He praised the UAE for being a pioneering nation in terms of how it has embraced technology and digital transformation in order to improve the lives of its citizens.
Professor Schwab stated that the acceleration of technological development over the past decade had been supersonic and unlike anything we had seen before, and he predicted that trend to continue with the emergence of 5G.
However, he did stress that income disparity and cybersecurity were both real issues of concern that need to be resolved and addressed in order to ensure that all of society and not just those of affluence benefited from these revolutionary technological advancements.
Professor Michio Kaku, a theoretical Physicist and Futurist, was next up on stage at the World Government Summit to deliver his keynote address which was entitled 'Are Governments ready for a dynamic future?'
His phenomenally engaging and informative presentation wowed the crowd as he predicted how the future will look when digitalization has matured across all industries.
He declared that healthcare would be completely revolutionized due to the emergence of both robotics and augmented reality. He said that technological advancements are equipping medical professionals with the ability to map the human brain.
Professor Kaku said, "The next century could give us the "Connectome Project", which will enable us to map the human brain and eliminate mental illness. We've also created a pill, which once taken orally can convey pictures from inside your stomach to determine what exactly is inside your body. This means men no longer have to have uncomfortable colonoscopies."
The charismatic and colorful self-labelled 'futurist' claimed that the world was moving towards 'perfect capitalism', which basically cuts out the middle men and reduces the friction of capitalism. He also declared that new liquid biopsies had been created which would tackle cancer by enabling people to detect if they had cancerous cells years before they would ever be diagnosed with the illness.
"In the future your toilet will be able to tell you if you've got cancer. Once you take the liquid biopsies your bodily fluid can indicate if you've got cancer cells. The capsules have magnets inside the liquid biopsy which can identify if you've got cancerous cells. The word tumor will disappear from the English language."
In addition to this, he claimed that we can now upload memories into the human brain, something which was once considered preposterous. However, following successful tests on mice and apes, this method is now being used in some cases on Alzheimer patients. He also said that the internet of the future will be labelled Brain Net.
The professor concluded that AI will undoubtedly revolutionize our world and create millions of new jobs in the process. He played down the threat of robots overtaking humanity, stressing that robots were not yet self-aware. However, he did concede that by the end of this century they could develop self-awareness and if they do then that will pose a serious threat to our existence.
He said, "AI will create new industries and jobs. It will revolutionize our society. However, some are afraid that robots will take over. But they won't become a threat until the end of this century. They need to develop self-awareness in order to be a threat to humanity."