The World Leadership Alliance-Club de Madrid (WLA-CdM) in partnership with the Boston Global Forum (BGF) is organizing a Policy Lab on Transatlantic Approaches to Digital Governance: A New Social Contract in the Age of Artificial Intelligence that will take place on 16-18 September 2020.
Due to social distancing measures, we have decided to organize a virtual conference instead. The key content of this conference is “The Social Contract 2020: A New Social Contract in the Age of AI”
There are 20 former presidents and prime ministers that will join together with distinguished thinkers, legislators, and business leaders.
The magnitude and relevance of the COVID-19 pandemic has, naturally, upended original plans for Policy Lab on Transatlantic Approaches to Digital Governance: A New Social Contract in the Age of Artificial Intelligence which was originally designed to take place in the Spring of 2020. However, this initiative is now more important than ever as we seek to engage in multi-stakeholder discussions on the interaction between artificial intelligence/emerging technologies and measures/policies adopted by governments, international organizations, companies and society in times of global crises such as the one spawned by COVID 19.
The spread and penetration of digital technologies has been transforming society, the way in which we work, communicate and participate in different public and private spaces for some time now. The COVID-19 outbreak and ensuing global health crisis has significantly accelerated this process, imposing rapid and widespread digitalization even in the political sphere.
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen online party meetings and even parliamentary sessions conducted via videoconference. We have also been able to verify the complexity of adapting certain governance interaction to a virtual format due to internal public administration rules and regulations Likewise, we have seen an increased interest in moving even voting online with a clear consciousness and concern over the opportunities and risks that this would entail in the context of elections.