Davos 2019 - The Future of Science and Technology in Society

so let me set the scene for this conversation we're talking about the future of science and technology in society of course science and technology are part and parcel of society they form a crucial part of everybody's lives so it is little wonder therefore that scientists and technologists are concerned with the image that the society has of themselves and the level of trust that society has in researchers and technology developers and perhaps in this day and age is particularly important that we concern ourselves with this because of course we have all seen decision makers doubt experts and expert opinion and hence our interest in this in the opinion in the Society of scientists and technologists is even further heightened having said that there are some curious facts that we know about we know that members of the general public actually hold scientists in important regard general generally science scientists as a profession are well respected these are this information comes from polls mainly conducted in the global North especially in North America interestingly in the same polls journalists tend to do particularly poorly in terms of the the general public public opinion and yet at the same time there is a concern in the society over the role and the influence that technology particularly digital technology companies exert over the society and how that business conducts how those businesses conduct themselves again allow me to refer to some relatively recent data from from North America so for example the general public in the u.s. believes that these digital technology companies have particularly favored views of specific groups for example 43% of the general public believes that those groups those technology companies support liberals versus conservatives 23% believed that these companies favored views of men over women and very interestingly in perhaps not surprisingly in recent years 72% believe that social social media platforms actively sense their political views to other pieces of statistics for you to bear in mind and for the panelists to consider is 75w pardon 65 percent of Americans agree with the following statement that the the technology digital technology companies often fail to anticipate how the products and services will impact society and 24% of that same population who took the poll and say that those companies do not do enough to protect personal data and their users and in general if you think that technologists are trustworthy and 50 percent of those who express an opinion think that technology companies should be much more strictly regulated so there's an interesting setting interesting dichotomy perhaps between how scientists as professionals are considered and what the general public thinks about technology and technology companies so this is what what we're here to discuss and we have a fantastic panel to discuss it with me so I will introduce them in order so here on my left and usually we have Carlos Carlos misers who's Commissioner for research science and innovation at European Commission and by training he's a civil engineer next to him is Saleh Sarah almarri Minister of State for advanced sciences for the United Arab originally trained as a computer engineer next we have only species offer president and CEO of ABB group originally economist by training next to him is last Sorensen chairman of the board of directors and novo nordisk foundation originally studied forestry and economics and until recently was president and CEO of Northern or disc and last but most definitely not least we have Brian Schmidt who's a professor of astronomy and vice vice chancellor of Australian National University and Nobel Prize winner in physics in 2011 so let me open with the first break first question - - Sarah the the data which I was just referring to and most of the information which we have of course comes from North America but more broadly from the global North you bring a very interesting perspective to this conversation what does the situation look like in United Arab Emirates and in the Middle East more broadly and the Emirates and the Middle East in general the focus when it comes to science and technology hasn't gotten to a point from where what we see the statistics reflect in terms of a lack of trust maybe in technology companies the reason for that is a lot of our economies including the UAE is not highly intensive on science and technology driven organizations that being the case for us science and technology is actually the Dynamo of the future of our economy especially when a lot of the countries that our oil based countries are moving and pushing more towards diversifying their economy we see science technology as the actual foundation for the future of that and we're we're talking about an entire region that is sixty percent made up of people that are under 35 there is quite a thirst for opportunities and also quite a thirst for stability over all and the drivers towards and the needs for it for the group of people between the age of 20 and 35 which is what our region not only the UAE but the region is made up is looking more and more towards towards science and technology as a means to an end so as creating opportunities for them as creating jobs for them and creating better stability within their own societies so the perception sort of and the need for science and technology has is quite different from a region that is well stabilized when it comes to the overall science technology ecosystem perceptions like you said about scientists again it's the same as everywhere else in the world it's quite it is quite high and they do hold them in high regard but there is a large disconnect between the science community and overall society that we see that that there is still that sort of perception that scientists are a small niche in society of a particular IQ that are quite disjoint than everybody else and that sort of hinders more and more people entering into Sciences but when we see engineering the region has quite a high concentration of graduates when it comes to engineering and the utilization of their skills and capabilities Falls well aligned with technological advancements for the region so the next drive as in terms of priority for us is having more and more companies being established out of the UAE and out of the region that develop technologies and develops and solutions for societal needs thank you very interesting how being at a different stage you you have a greater potential to shape that perception but indeed the situation is different currently you Lee if I can follow up with you on this so in in the global North as I described it we do have a an issue with that perception what why do you think that is and what can be done about it to bring about change now then you take today's situation around technology many people have an issue and say can I trust it do I believe in it do I want it amen you do the root cause of it typically there are a couple of observations number one people are not concerned about the technology they are concerned about what the technology does and therefore we should not decouple a perspective from science or technology from the use of it you should always look at jointly I just give you an example when you get up in the morning it's the elderly person and you go in the garage and you see a car is that good or bad technology it's great technology because it gives you convenience I'm getting around now the same technology used they forbade peppers might become a weapon so I think the value in the solution that you drive from a technology perspective is funding that we've ever bear off second we talk a lot about potential negative impacts of technology be by far don't talk enough about the positive effects of technology ask an elderly person let's stay with that what AI in a building does when the other lis person can just say switch on the light get me some food fill up the refrigerator by internet shopping how does our lives become something there are positive and positive received and we're gonna get it going if you look at the history of mankind the development of prosperity of growth of wealth hangs directly together with technology don't forget in 1990 30% of the global population live below the extreme poverty line today it's less than 8% and BFD ambition to get it to zero now what's the pattern that got us there let's first start with the parts of the world that did not embrace technology take Africa Africa has some signals of adoption technology but all together has done much less than other parts we have today more people below the extreme poverty line than before which is really concerning that means a call for action for us as leaders in society in industry the countries like India in China the last 20 years more than 400 million people have been moved from below the extreme poverty line into higher income bucket meaning that we have today a much better pattern and debt in the use of that or a driver of that was really application of human force together with technology going forward we see that everybody in the world today is afraid about robotics because perceptions are being created a robot skilled jobs and the opposite is true if you look at the re-emergence of the American automotive industry it would not have happened if automation excuse me and robotics together wouldn't have allowed world-class productivity and quality of the outcome of the processes that we're gonna get going so there is a information element of the trust that we need to work on but there's a second element that we also need to work on because people totally legitimately say what does it mean for me what does it mean for my job and if you look at in 2030 10% of global population will work in jobs that don't explain exist today one-third of the American population works today in jobs that it mixes 25 years ago so we have a mandate in front of us to take the people with us and we need to take the people with us in a couple of different dimensions first do the information what it means what is coming your way what do we do the second piece is we need to take our mandate very very serious between politics education and industry to take the people with us and shape the future of employment the only gonna make forum has done a study and the study says automation will kill 75 million jobs and that's the number that everybody focuses on but at the same time the same study says it will create hundred thirty three million new jobs in parallel and that's the transition that people that drives anxiety and fear because people might say I might be in the 75 million bucket and who helped me to get into the hundred thirty three million bucket and that's something the s responsible leaders we need to take up give an example of our own company in 2005 I joined ABB there about 19 billion turnover comparable basis we had 90,000 people we had $47 and blue color people today we have 36 billion turnover we have hundred forty six thousand people and we have 42,000 blue-collar people that means we have taken the employment the staff profile in a completely different shape and we have done this in a responsible proactive way and that's the mandate that we need to take on we had reason to be used digital technologies to take a 1.4 billion cost out of our general and admin processes and at the same time we said what do we do with the people we would have had huge restructuring charges doing that if we looked at our elderly at our age pyramid in the company and really realized we need to hire every year between eight and ten thousand people to really safeguard the growth of the company at the same time so we said with HR together is that we take the people and we offer them a redeployment and a rillette occasion it cost me thirty five thousand euro to re-educate somebody in Germany it cost me hundred thousand to fire somebody so it's it's economically attractive to do the right thing and it's also from a staff perspective hugely motivating to do that so but we have now embraced and I stopped with that we have embraced of a continual journey of continuous change that people know they have to expect their job will be changing but they have also impressed on a journey that people know we take care of them and I think that's the mandate to all of us we don't have 75 million people or 133 million people that's a mandate to all of us between politics education and industry to take the serious to take the mandate and then I'm sure they can achieve growth prosperity involve with a higher level of confidence and trust and a more positive momentum than what we are seeing today so these comments are particularly interesting to consider in the light of one of the statistics that I gave you at the beginning and that is 65% of the people in these polls in North believe these companies that we're now talking about failed to anticipate how their products and services will impact society and so there's a clear mismatch in in what can I just comment on that you have a civic mom because this is a very small set of technology companies this is the Facebook's our monster of the world that's a set of 12 companies that basically drive the perception their technology leaders are active in the b2c space the active in the b2b space the main distrust is at the moment happening on the b2b b2c space on the topics that you just mentioned and we need to address it but we need to calibrate that's right so that's also quite interesting who shapes that perception which then spreads over the whole the whole sector and the community let me turn now with a question to tool ask is because you have an interesting perspective of having been on the on the business side of things but most recently you have moved to a foundation has that has that changed your perception now and and your insight into what we can do in order to change the perceptions that we're talking about here yeah I would say that journey has informed me of my current opinion the no noise foundation has as one of its remit to support basic science in primarily in biomedical research but also increasingly now in Natural Sciences and through education and as such we have a fundamental belief that knowledge creates progress and and therefore Trust is very very important and we also believe that without technology and science we cannot solve them all the major problems that we are facing right now so that Trust is even more important today than it has ever been societies are becoming more plural in the past it was the experts that had a voice now everybody has a voice and hence we can sometimes get blinded by the fact that that the choir is so diverse and the messages are so diverse so the internet the advent of the internet and social media are both part of the problem but also hopefully part of the solution to regaining or creating the trust that we need we need simply the credible source of information to proceed and so my initial perception was that geez I was looking at some particular events recently where information its social media has informed the public of health decisions which were were probably not the best for their health based on a misconception of natural treatments and remedies and I I know Brian can talk at length to this in that even in the face of I would say overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary and this just goes to show that there is something which is a problem but then I started to reflect is that a new thing or or have I experienced this in the past and when I look back at my time with the company I started in in the industrial biotechnology part and then moved to healthcare and spent 34 years with the company the first issue was when we tried to introduce modern biotechnology this was industrial manufacturing of bio ingredients for different household products and industrial processes and one of them was enzymes for detergents there was a big public debate about whether this was hazardous for for the consumer and a lot of NGOs were very aggressively against this new technology and hence we had to layoff 30% of our staff until 15 years later we were able to convince the public that it was actually to the contrary that these perishable bio chemicals could help us lower the temperature of the washing process being ecologically much more sound and completely biodegradable in nature the next experience was the experience of GMOs the advent of our ability to genetically modify both organisms and plants in terms of organisms it was relatively easy to convince the public that GMOs for human health purposes was probably a good idea as long as the manufacturing process was contained GMOs for industrial processes were slightly more suspicious in the eyes of the public because what is the gain is the gain out weighing any unquantifiable risk and certainly as when it came to plants this was meaning planting new plants out in society that were altered genetically the precautionary principle has led to this not being applied at all in Europe as opposed to United States based on the precautionary principle and in recent days we have seen issue of vaccine where the public perception has been that well maybe there is some you get sick you get autism you get other ailments by being vaccinated so vaccination rates are coming down measles are becoming an issue HPV virus treatment is being less than what it should be in the face of scientific overwhelming evidence so I think that we need to recognize that this has always been an issue that it is a rather than criticizing the public for not understanding our wonderful science and technology we need to understand that that we need to be in interaction with society about our intentions the risks associated with the technology that we embark on we see a very stark recent example of genetic engineering of babies to create HIV resistance in China which has of course gone completely over the edge in terms of what we would a sickly and morally recommend and this is being highly debated at the moment so it is upon us it's upon all of us to educate the public and go into a dialogue with the public about the benefits but also recognize that the some of the risks which may be perceived risks may be emotional concerns will have to be dealt with and unless we deal with them openly we will not be able to get a license to operate and that would be meaning that we would end up in a much poorer world and we wouldn't be able to solve the major problems that we face shortage of foodstuffs pollution climate change all the rest of it I mean we need technology for that purpose so very clearly there are two strong themes emerging one of communication clear purposeful communication and education of the of the general public and society at large and and very importantly to me that some of the the final points that you made this has to be communication which is transparent and an education which is transparent and so in other words respectful of the society with which we communicate the natural transition will be now to hand over to to Brian to talk about maybe roles of universities in education in this context how do you see that yeah I mean I guess I see this problem as having two sides there is one side where people across society are not trusting the information as presented so vaccinations GMOs climate change and the old days fluoridation of water are our examples now that is a specific issue of communication and it's become much harder because the Internet and the World Wide Web now allows us or allows people to go out and seek information on their own basis we used to curate it in the universities curated information and we only told you what we thought was right and there was occasionally questions around in our own areas of what was right and wrong but we curated the information we are no longer able to curate the information for people and that is a profound change to how we perceive ourselves and it has made it much much harder and so we need to figure out how to go out and communicate clearly the ideas that we see based in science and how we do that well education of people starting at age three all the way up the more educated people are the less likely they are to rebel against this information and these are this rejection of information certainly right now is linked to populism and its length and populism is linked directly to educational attainment not one-to-one but you can kind of see the strategy there but you don't go out and start this at two fifty year olds you need to start at age three and you need to have a highly educated population the other issue which is quite different is people not trusting companies or the government with information in this new what I will describe as a cyber you know a cyber physical world where artificial intelligence and data and robots are coming together in a new way and that is not something based on education it's not populist it's well held across the population and it's well held for reasons we've already discussed is that there have been some some problems that we have all see emerge we have seen the manipulation of social media by potentially state actors to influence public opinion we've seen information being used in ways to manipulate our behavior by corporations to buy things in ways that we didn't completely realize and so that has emerged because this is the Wild West it is a place where there are no rules there are no nor and in the Universities where we have created the entrepreneurs or have gone out and done this we didn't sit down and describe to them what's the right way to think this through their company went from you know a dollar to a billion dollars and in 18 months and they're just trying to make money and they're not really thinking of this so it we sort of lost control of it so one of the things that we're doing is we have started a new Institute several years ago now led by Genevieve Bell at Intel where we are literally trying to create the design framework of this cyber physical world so that you get a set of rules like when you build a bridge or you do for example an electrical grid or how we're more recently used to computer science there's a design principles to make these things robust and this is an emerging science it's not yet exist where we're literally going through and saying you know the fundamentals of what you know what agency does this system have that is what is it allowed to go out and do what what power does it have to go out do things how much autonomy do we give it do we let it run completely open loop forever or do we intervene and curate it what its activities are and finally you know how how much assurance do we have are we sure it's acting within the realm of the permissions we've given it and those route that that that way of thinking things does not exist it exists in all the other engineering disciplines and we just take it for granted but in this case it's the Wild West you know I create a new app it does something it interacts with people in a complex way and she'll be right there are no engineering rules so we're trying to create that engineering discipline and you'll see now all sorts of human interactive AI that's these are all the same flavor and so you know we're beginning to create that across the university system and that's going to be part of our education is helping create responsible tech in the future by designing the systems that hopefully help stop some of the problems we've seen the varying points trying to rules into the in this of wild-west of communication and and indeed new disciplines as they as they emerge so we've had a number of interesting discipline views from different representatives you'll be fascinating to hear your perspective colors from from a perspective of an institution how how can institutions advance the the solve health help solve solve the issue which we're discussing thank you very much and thank you to all for being here knowing that Chancellor Merkel is talking in the other room there's two conclusions or you are really a group of friends of ours or you don't know that she's speaking in the other room but one of the things I've done in these five years is commission for science was to think about this problem of communication and I think there's two things one is about the communication itself about how we talk about science today how do scientists talk about science and then how we explain science and I think that after the Second World War we had a social contract somehow in between scientists and the people that was about scientists telling people what to do a little bit like Brian said was vertical you could curate you were actually we would go to the your doctor and your doctor will tell you what to do and today that model is over so we kind of need another social contract in between science and people and I think that social contract has to be about communicating science through different narratives that's something that we do somehow very badly in Europe we have this amazing program of 80 billion years for science and then I go home to my mother and I say you know we're putting 1 billion to map the brain and my mother tells me why why are you mapping the brain instead of telling my mother we have these 1 billion years that will cure Alzheimer and then she'll say ok I understand and I think that somehow the scientists they understand science in their own way and I'm in the middle I'm a politician so I'm hearing between the people in the scientists and I think that what I can help as a politician is to build that narrative and so we've started this project at the European Union level which is about creating these mission driven science and that is exactly about taking five or six subjects at the European level that people will be proud in Europe to see that we will solve so we could peek and say we're gonna be the first to have the first electrical plane the first commercial electrical plane that'd be such an amazing thing for the future and then people will feel proud of it and that being proud of it will make that people will vote for politicians that really care about science and then you will have funding to do your science but you have somehow to get out of your comfort zone as scientists in some of you do these very well and the ones that are here I mean Nobel Prizes you know you do it very well but most of the others they don't get into these narratives they talk about the story of science as what they love and not what people want to hear and so we have to help on that the second part is about the process of science if I talk in a lot of town halls to people that are not scientists young people are the people in small towns in Portugal and people don't understand how science works what is the process of science and suddenly scientists somehow and we as politicians - we want to have all the answers and we don't explain to people and so I think that is the first or the first thing I did in the Commission was to try to have a group of achieve scientific advisers that will help us to explain the process of science and by that I mean telling people what scientists don't know telling people what science they have doubts and then tell people look based on what we know and in this process which is the process of science that's what we come to to explain you but people don't want to know anymore numbers or facts they want to understand the process if they don't understand they will google it and it's worse because then they get confused and if it's about health they get scared because they think they're gonna die and so you have to explain the process and and so I think that these two things would change this social contract that as a lot of things that we're living are we're talking about multilateral organizations we have to change the contract our multilateral organizations work and I think science is a little bit the same so that's where we're heading at the level of the European Union thank you for this very interesting perspective if you think about how we all communicate in different ways so the landscape in which we operate has really changed that you're talking about social contract you can think of it as a landscape in which we operate and this this notion that that politicians can help scientists build a new narrative and I loved the way you said it that people can be proud of the science I think that that's the true true level of engagement that we really ultimately want to strive for from from the from the general society in the general population I think that that would be something amazing to strive for I would like to open for questions from all of you we've had some really fascinating comments here a lot talking about how the landscape has changed how there are issues with communication and education issues but first and foremost opportunities for all of us Yuli is dying to say something will you be breathing in this round and listen to this this conversation I feel like being at a funeral and it's really all negative we need to regulate we need to avoid it we need to be careful and that's all true but very clearly we got a mandate in front of us we need to feed a growing population of the world we need to get the standard of living up we need to have clean oceans we need to have cleaner air and technology and science should contribute on that one and I think whilst we need to talk about very important hygiene factors of doing this in the right way we should also focus on the impact that we want to create with the future of science and technology if use technology right we can make the air cleaner if we use technology right we can get kids healthier when we get technology right we can make sure that the oceans of the world don't get polluted as much as they get polluted today and I think that mandate we also need to make sure we lifted in a positive way and don't feel like this is all negative because it's fantastic where we got to over the last couple of thousand years of mankind design technology I'm personally very excited where we can get in the future but naturally we need to manage the risks also in a good way just as a side comment absolutely I think there's a lot to be proud of and so now the challenge is to make everyone proud of it and there are a number of questions already if I can ask if you can stand up when you ask a question identify yourself please I'm a science writer from Zurich I would be very interested to hear your opinion on that because I think it's not only education I think it's fascinating the fact that with vaccinations it's the more educated against vaccinations so this is kind of a mismatch between education and knowledge so do you have yeah I mean certainly vaccinations in Australia is a middle class problem and it's not but it is again it's moderate education but the most educated people tend not to fall into it so it again comes to not being able to curate information like we used to and things can run amuck and they run amok by campaigns by very serious people and in the case of vaccinations we can trace it in Australia to a couple very high-profile people who have get things started it takes off on its own so the question is how you deal with that you could try to regulate it I'm not sure that's a good idea you can try to counter it and we do and I would say we're winning that war but the reality is measles has popped up again after being almost completely eliminated and it's painful so I think that has to be I think that ultimately comes to a failure of previous education you know three-year-olds to University onto that it's just it's the ability to discern what information is valid and what information is credible that's been lost and maybe that goes back to former education when we had a primary source of books so things that have been peer-reviewed things that have been well gone through the process when now we have a wealth of information at our fingertips that can be very easily made to to prove a point you can change data points you can change the way that a graph is shown and and be able to explain to have another perspective out of it and it's the same data point that exists in invalid research and it's that ability to discern what is valid information what has actually gone through the right process the right scientific process to get to get to the conclusions that is missing that is something that is vital again to go back to education that is vital to teach people at a very young age especially that we're coming to an age where self learning and the the process of education is starting to evolve and by self learning everyone has everything at their finger tip and it comes to a real danger on what information people learn when they're not able to discern what is correct quote/unquote correct information or information that is collected in a correct manner versus otherwise to my ears as an editor of a scientific journal of course what you say rings very true absolutely there's the question here at the front my name is Ferdinand de l'opéra I'm the president of the University of Waterloo in Canada fantastic comments thank you so much I'm gonna try to limit to my questions but I'm an engineer I use technology passionately but at the same time I'm concerned from a decision-making perspective to not to be able to distinguish between pure curiosity based signs and mission driven science when we do this our weak are we killing us at least part of our curiosity which is absolutely at the cornerstone of every basic scientific discovery without linking it to a specific mission second quite quick note I am extremely concerned about is something called predatory journals and this tumor is growing and we are absolutely and this is the part that I really don't like technology because it is creating a really fake artificial scientific world that many people are following and this is I we don't have an answer quite answer but there is a very important role for the scientific journals to play to eliminate that thank you can I just answer for the first part which is something that I've been thinking for the last three years about the link in between keep investing and investing more in fundamental curiosity-driven research especially because I think that being myself an engineer I see that a new wave of innovation is a wave that will go back to fundamentals and to fundamental research in quantum technology or blockchain or rather and I think that missions can be very positive for it because if you look at the most successful example of a mission which is a President Kennedy saying I'll put a man on the moon the results of putting a man of the moon had nothing to do with putting a man on the moon there's so much curiosity driven research that basically was that the time developed to cure disease to create new materials that were pure curiosity driven and I think that by creating at the top of the pyramid these mission driven science that can be four or five good examples that is a way of carrying all the others because today if you have as a politician to go around the country and talk about science people want to know the results and the use of that science and so you know that behind that there's the though science that sometimes brawl in 20 years 100 years will give results we don't know or never but that's not the point so I think that I as creating this mission driven science idea for Europe I think that I will be able to convince more people to invest exactly one what you want that's for me the example I get from a scientist in the CERN that once told me look the reason I do these things that in physics it's something that nobody really understand just me but I have a story to tell that it's not really the reason but people like to hear and so you know and and we have to to create that I think it's a but it's a very good question and I've been thinking a lot about it and so I just wanted to tell you that there's a lot of reflection but you also have a point so we have to be balanced about it it may be just a compliment on that for us as industrial leaders I always say it's super important that you keep the playground for the future we had that situation ABB we spend about a billion five every year on research and development and then I took over it was I looked at it and be realized ok 70% is on maintaining and making better what we have and a to smaller amount of it was really given the people to opportunity in the sandbox to think about what we don't think about what could be important for the future but so what did we do we we said ok there are certain spaces very gonna allocate money and one of the space was digital technologies and I said ok got a team established we said team you have 100 million you have a hundred million a year and the others the the traditional guys said we don't have that money and said no no we have that money you just spend it at the moment so we cut your spending here and you all together have to cut by a hundred million and big if the playground one hundred million and if we wouldn't have done that too I wouldn't have done that a couple of years ago today the company wouldn't really be in dire straits did we know what we're gonna do with every dollar of this 100 million did we know where are we gonna spend exactly a hundred million 80 million or we need more no but we just said we created space and I think that something that's missing today in society very very often the ambition and Endicott's to say okay you know what despite my quarterly reports my activists on the charities they're everybody breathing down our neck I take a hundred million that I don't know what I get out of it next quarter but I throw it at a future I believe there can be something created and that's what we need to stand for and we need to make sure to short-termism that is really impacting all of us every day running companies running budgets in research organization doesn't kill the ambition for creativity for spaces to be created to really shape the future so very important points so Brian and then Sarah I think we want to yeah so I think one of the issues that we have is missions are easy to sell and I think they are an important part but certainly over my career mission oriented research or what I would describe is translational research where there is actually a purpose and the work that you would do in your company will almost always be having some purpose it displaces the basic research just in and has been happening and you can see in the statistics of all the countries so since we have the president of Waterloo who has a Nobel Prize winner of this year Barbara Strickland her work in laser physics which was completely had no relevance to any any mission anywhere has now helped create the whole field of quantum information of manipulating quantum states which is going to be a huge industry going forward so we need to preserve it and make sure it doesn't get displaced noting the importance of the missions so so the storyline that we just heard right now we don't hear we don't communicate like this to the public we don't go and tell them that this technology that you're using today actually was a result of investment in basic science research and as a policy maker we have this exact same dilemma and how do we ensure that we have a continuous efj of science in general by by funding basic research versus garnering more and more support for funding research and that's research with a purpose and identifying the priorities again when we're talking about a country that's just starting in science technology the first step that we had to do is corporations weren't looking into their future challenges and they weren't in there they're still not investing into future that that that they know that they will face challenges and directional research that's where it's being filled in it's filled in in two key sectors that the UAE is currently in into it's oil and gas sector into its manufacturing sector into statistics and travel and transport sectors and then into our key priorities better health water energy and food that is the directional portion of it when it comes to basic research it's it's alleviating the burden that is that is currently on the government to fund translational research which is currently happening more and more that is taking funding from basic research by building a case to this purpose for a new sector to harness to actually invest in translational research and applied research and would enable the the flexibility for the for the for basic research and fundamental research to actually occur and happen and then our dialogue needs to change I myself suffer from this we are not very good storytellers hmm we are very good at using jargons and it's it's it's alienates people and the more the more you talk to people in town halls the more you realize that your language is not understood and then one point of having those monumental challenges is what the UAE adopted about four years ago and in taking on a large monumental project of sending a spacecraft to Mars and that has created quite a change in dialogue in children of all ages where today we have cases in universities of student students turning changing their majors because of the mission from International Studies from economics these are these are important but to the sciences because when they first enter into these majors they did not know that there was opportunities elsewhere they did not understand the focus of it so we should not go away from taking such monumental challenges that are risky that sometimes make not a lot of sense I mean a country that is as young as the UAE a country that has a space sector that it was established less than 10 years ago when when we announced that project and that has only been working on a various niche spacecraft development and still hasn't had their capabilities is going into a challenge that has a 50% chance of success so it's we need to continuously remember that globally that mind shifts that sort of Apollo mission Hale or projects that moonshot that's still that always needs to be there in the way that we do business in science final quick comment Lars on that topic yes it was it was back to one of the comments made initially by Brian which in the spirit of this Davos Brian where we see a move to bilateralism as opposed to multilateralism you were talking about systems design and through education and defining processes and designs for computer use for artificial intelligence how do you see that doing globally agreed upon in the world that we are facing right now because the use of it is global so this means everybody has to get on understand that otherwise it's meaningless to develop a standard so well these things have ever developed very organically so you can go through and look at computer science kind of emerged out of Carnegie Mellon and some other places and people said oh gosh ok and then suddenly the academic world is incredibly globalized and you know in 18 months it'll be adopted everywhere look at Chris progressed you know past nine boom something happened 10 years ago and it's in every lab in the world three or four years later so it will happen very quickly when people get the right answer thank you there's the question over there please if you stand up introduce yourself please hello my name is Goethe I am the president of a nonprofit Cultural Association based in Lisbon called experimental design and I would like to listen to your opinion about the connection between science technology and culture essentially because well I've been working the last 20 years with lots of artists that huge science at the in technology in a very important way but I haven't see the opposite so it's rare to see people coming from science and from technology to look at cultural field and to use it as a medium and as possible to expand in terms of communication but also in terms of research so you talk about education which is of course fundamental but culture is much more easy to spread and it's a very important medium to reach people in a very efficient and productive way so I've always mesmerized with this distance between these three disciplines two or three areas well I don't know have exactly an answer but I have a story in my company my predecessor had to believe that we being largely technologists needed to be educated in culture so he decorated the whole company with very avant-garde modern art and we thought it was horrible because we couldn't understand it but it left an impression and and it on all of us to ask questions and and it allowed the the employees of the company to to stop and wonder about this piece of art what was the real meaning of this and this this gave them I think the courage in their daily work to ask questions which they otherwise would not have so I do believe that there is a very clear link between our cultural orientation and our ability to perform science but also to understand science and communicate science I know it's a broader answer but I believe you you're onto something let me give you one example that we did about a year ago to address the anxiety and the distrust in robotics we had an AI and because everybody is concerned about AI everybody is concerned about robotics we thought how can we transpose a different message and we did something quite unique we got to get up in front rayappa jelly and in the Opera of Pisa we had our two arm robot Yumi conducting the orchestra on Andrea Bocelli sang to it and it was amazing if we would have spent 500 million on advertising and on marketing money we would by far not have mobilized the openness the perception of the world away if we wouldn't have done what we did we had millions of YouTube clicks if you go on it go in yumi Bocelli then you get it and it's really fascinating and it creates a completely different perception in climate towards technology then the conductor does an interview there they've glowing eyes and says how wonderful it is to work with the robot out of the certain you're breaking down barriers that you would have never been able to break down there's a scientific magazine with advertising I think that'sthat's just one of the examples that I can share out for your life can I just say that and sometimes it's so mainstream you forget think of astronomy astronomy is mainstream in cultural stuff everywhere you see it in film you see it in music you see it in art it's everywhere it's on TV all the time because astronomers have always felt the need to communicate what we do through any medium possible so I think that's a place in my own field where we have done it and done it quite effectively so so much it's actually mainstream so it's interesting if you consider the the topic that we were considering here for the last hour the future of science and technology in society very clearly science and society is part of science and technology is part of society it needs to be better integrators it obviously has always been part of society but I think we have a challenge all of us to integrate it much better to tap into the different aspect of society including culture thank you for that question I think that was very very important and importantly Illustrated how powerful that can be we need to embrace better storytelling and talk talk more fully and about science how the fruits of scientific endeavor and technological developments actually very often in fact almost always have roots in the basic scientific exploration and all of that can be wrapped up and folded into actually generating ideally a situation in which the whole society is proud of the scientific endeavor and technological development because they can all enjoy it and so indeed the ultimate message I think is a very positive one and of course now the opportunity for asses is to use these various tools and go into this society and engage this society on a continuous basis I want to thank you very much all of you on the panel and all of you for being here for great questions thank you very much [Applause]

Channel: World Economic Forum

Views: 23,963

Keywords: World Economic Forum, Davos, WEF2019, Davos 2019, politics, finance, economy, news, leadership, democracy, education, 4IR, technology, tech, AI, automation, work, future

Id: lGzyZyQoN8Y

Length: 56min 4sec (3364 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 09 2019