Valdai Club

Humanity not only has hope for a better future, but simply needs this better future. Otherwise, there won’t be any future at all, writes Valdai Club Chairman Andrey Bystritskiy.

A key feature of China’s modernisation is its emergence as a pivotal global power. Its domestic successes have paved the way for international influence, allowing China to shape broader human development by offering its own agenda and distinct model of the future for all.

People are believed to have inhabited Asia for tens of thousands of years, and over this time, they have accumulated a vast body of knowledge. Yet, as recent events demonstrate, there is still much to learn – including how to cope with new challenges, writes Valdai Club Chairman Andrey Bystritskiy in the run-up to the 16th Asian Conference of the Valdai Club.

The world has become more complex, multidimensional, and interconnected. The matrix needed to map the forces at play and calculate necessary actions either does not exist or is too complex for practical application. This is precisely why we should not expect AI to help us achieve an ideal world, writes Valdai Club Chairman Andrey Bystritskiy.

Statements that the old world order has collapsed and the new one is only just emerging have become a truism. At the same time, Africa shows us how this world order is emerging right before our eyes, at least in one part of the world. However, it is very closely connected with the rest of the world arena.

It’s well known that people usually say that they don’t like changes. At the same time, they have nowhere to go, all life is change and the end of each life is predetermined and known. Nevertheless, while a person is alive, he always tries to somehow improve his situation: for example, to earn more or start a family with a loved one. That is, some changes are desirable. The same is true of fear. It is impossible not to be afraid.

Russia is to hold a parade on Friday to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War. The main point of parades is not the parade itself, but to move on to the future world we want to build after the parade. This is what both Russia and China are doing, with their leaders, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, meeting in Moscow during the celebrations.

The symbiosis of humans and machines is neither inherently good nor evil. We must embrace AI’s potential while remaining vigilant about its risks. Otherwise, we risk stumbling into a nightmarish new Stone Age, this time powered by robots, Valdai Club Chairman Andrey Bystritskiy writes.

This was the title of both the book and the film by the well-known fantasist and, perhaps, adventurer Erich von Däniken. With excessive cleverness, he claimed – and even claimed to prove – that aliens had visited Earth multiple times, exerting a profound influence on the development of humanity. Observing the current state of affairs on Earth, one might be tempted to believe in the namesake of the Russian White General Denikin and hope that aliens will soon return to help us unravel the chaos we find ourselves in.

The global crisis that we are experiencing is aggravated by an intellectual crisis of world political thought. Nevertheless, people are inventive, and maybe AI will help, writes Valdai Club Chairman Andrey Bystritskiy.