Kai-Fu Lee issues ‘radical call to arms’ to ensure AI future is bright

One of the world’s leading thinkers on Artificial Intelligence has called for “monumental action” from governments and businesses to ensure societies “thrive in the AI revolution.”

Kai-Fu Lee, Chairman and CEO, Sinovation Ventures, sets out his vision for a world enhanced by AI technologies in a new Asia House publication featuring articles from leading figures in global trade and technology.

Asia House Insights: Asia Trade in the New Global Order includes contributions by Liam Fox, UK Secretary of State for International Trade, HE Liu Xiaoming, Chinese Ambassador to the UK, and Robert Koopman, Chief Economist, World Trade Organization.

Writing on ‘How to survive and thrive in the AI revolution’, Lee, who will receive the 2018 Asia House Asian Business Leaders Award at a gala dinner in Singapore this November, says AI technologies have the potential to dramatically improve human life, but that a revolutionary approach is required to ensure their benefits are realised.

“The engines of our economy, the investment firms, need to start looking at investing in companies with a positive, outward-facing social impact, rather than just start-up tech firms,” Dr Lee writes.

“If this sounds like a radical call to arms, it’s because it is.

“We are facing a period of monumental change – and it will take monumental action to get ahead of it. Western governments are not always good at facing up to radical change but they will need to.”

The author of the highly-acclaimed book, AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley and the New World Order, also proposes “two distinct shifts” in government policy as the AI age dawns, including the creation of a “Social Investment Stipend” to “provide a respectable salary and career” for individuals involved in the care, service and education sectors.

Dr Lee will be speaking at Asia House’s gala dinner at the Fullerton Hotel, Singapore, on 22 November, where he will be presented with the Asia House Asian Business Leaders Award 2018. The dinner will bring together leading figures in global business and diplomacy, with government ministers, ambassadors and senior executives in attendance, as well as members of Singapore’s tech community.

For booking enquiries and further information about the dinner, please contact Evie Cramb: evie.cramb@asiahouse.co.uk

Asia House Insights: Asia Trade in the New Global Order will be published in November.