Davos Highlights AI's Massive PR Problem

As business, policy, and technology leaders gathered at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland this year, the rise of populism with Brexit in the UK and the election of Donald Trump in the US drove discussions about the pros and cons of globalization. While globalization has improved the living conditions of vast swaths of this planet's population, it has also led to shifting employment patterns, as jobs leave the US for China and other low-wage countries. However, the Davos cognoscenti believe wage inequality is only part of the problem. Hand-in-hand with globalization is the topic of automation – seen as more of a culprit for increasing inequality than the usual scapegoat, low-cost labor. "[Automation] particularly represents a challenge for people in our economy with low skills, particularly the older workers who don't feel able to embrace and learn new skills and new technologies," says Philip Hammond, the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, according to an article in the Washington Post.