WEF Roundup: Digital IDs Can Track the Unvaccinated, AI Can Speed Up Development of New Vaccines

The threat of a new pandemic and so-called “misinformation.” The future of democracy. The future impact of artificial intelligence (AI) in society. The “green agenda.”

These were just some of the topics on the agenda at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, which concluded today.

Some of the highlights of this year’s meeting included warnings of how a yet-unknown “Disease X” may cause the next pandemic, discussions on how AI could lead to the rapid development of new vaccines, and talk about how AI could either fall victim to — or filter out — so-called “misinformation” and “disinformation.”

‘We don’t want to wait a year before we get the vaccine’

Warnings were accompanied by more optimistic — from the perspective of the meeting’s participants — outlooks about the role AI could play in tackling future pandemics, such as through the rapid development of new vaccines.

Jeremy Hunt, the U.K.’s chancellor of the Exchequer, said during a Thursday panel discussion — in which Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla participated — that “when we have the next pandemic, we don’t want to have to wait a year before we get the vaccine.”

“If AI can shrink the time it takes to get that vaccine to a month, then that is a massive step forward for humanity,” Hunt said…