- Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei and historian Yuval Noah Harari spoke in Davos about the future of technologies and the rise of digital surveillance.
- Harari warned companies and governments can essentially "hack" humans.
- Zhengfei downplayed the US ban on Huawei.
Two starkly different views of technology and the future emerged in a Davos discussion between Ren Zhengfei, CEO of the Chinese tech giant Huawei, and the historian Yuval Noah Harari.
For Harari, the age of rival investment between the US and China in Artificial Intelligence should worry us all.
"On the most shallow level it could be a repeat of the nineteenth century industrial revolution, when the leaders had the chance to dominate the world economically and politically," he said. "I understand the current arms race as an imperial arms race...You don't need to send the soldiers in if you have all the data on a country."
From the geopolitical to the personal, the age of digital surveillance also threatens what it means to be human and free, Harari warned.
"The point is when you gather enough data on people, you get to know people better than they know yourself. Are we at the point where companies or governments can hack millions of people, that means they know my medical history, personal weaknesses?"
But how do you hack a human being?
"You need a lot of biological knowledge, enough computer power, and enough data about me. You can hack my body, my brain, my life, you can reach a point where you know me better than I know myself," he said.
In his view, there is state surveillance in China, surveillance capitalism in the US, and no serious third player in the arms race for tech dominance.
What is the World Economic Forum doing on cybersecurity
The World Economic Forum Platform for Shaping the Future of Cybersecurity and Digital Trust aims to spearhead global cooperation and collective responses to growing cyber challenges, ultimately to harness and safeguard the full benefits of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The platform seeks to deliver impact through facilitating the creation of security-by-design and security-by-default solutions across industry sectors, developing policy frameworks where needed; encouraging broader cooperative arrangements and shaping global governance; building communities to successfully tackle cyber challenges across the public and private sectors; and impacting agenda setting, to elevate some of the most pressing issues.
Platform activities focus on three main challenges:
Strengthening Global Cooperation for Digital Trust and Security - to increase global cooperation between the public and private sectors in addressing key challenges to security and trust posed by a digital landscape currently lacking effective cooperation at legal and policy levels, effective market incentives, and cooperation between stakeholders at the operational level across the ecosystem.Securing Future Digital Networks and Technology - to identify cybersecurity challenges and opportunities posed by new technologies and accelerate solutions and incentives to ensure digital trust in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.Building Skills and Capabilities for the Digital Future - to coordinate and promote initiatives to address the global deficit in professional skills, effective leadership and adequate capabilities in the cyber domain.
The platform is working on a number of ongoing activities to meet these challenges. Current initiatives include our successful work with a range of public- and private-sector partners to develop a clear and coherent cybersecurity vision for the electricity industry in the form of Board Principles for managing cyber risk in the electricity ecosystem and a complete framework, created in collaboration with the Forum’s investment community, enabling investors to assess the security preparedness of target companies, contributing to raising internal cybersecurity awareness.
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Striking a much more optimistic tone was Ren Zhengfei. Just 20 years ago he didn't have his own home, but he founded Huawei, which ships more handsets in a year than Apple and invests heavily in innovation.
"I believe in the face of new technologies, humanity will be able to use them to benefit us. Most people aspire to a good life, not a miserable life," he said.
The executive also put into context today's fears around AI with other periods of upheaval, as people's concerns over the mechanical technologies of the First Industrial Revolution were gradually overcome.
In the present day, Huawei is in the spotlight after the United States blacklisted it last year over national security concerns, in the context of a trade war between the US and China.
"Huawei used to be an admirer of the US, we learned a lot from them. We hired dozens of American consulting firms to learn how to manage our business. The US should feel proud of [Huawei], they have the US management system exported and implemented. They should not be overly concerned about Huawei and our position in the world."
Ren Zhengfei downplayed the impact of the US ban and any potential escalation, saying they had been forced to adopt a Plan B to cope.
