Obama calls for global cooperation on AI safety in Portugal

Speaking at the Game Changers Forum at the MEO Arena in Lisbon, former US president Barack Obama warned that AI is advancing faster than governments can regulate it.

Obama also said that coordinating AI security efforts between the United States and China will be difficult, ECO News reports, and that the issue matters because current safeguards are not keeping pace with the speed of technological change.

“Technology moves very quickly, but governments move very slowly,” Obama said, adding that stronger safety measures are needed and that while this effort “has to start in the US,” China is also highly advanced, making coordination necessary despite tensions in the bilateral relationship, ECO News reports.

Technology reshaping jobs

Obama compared the impact of the current wave of technological change to the arrival of automation in factories in the 1970s and 1980s. The change is unfolding faster than earlier digital shifts, including the spread of smartphones during his presidency, Obama said, arguing that the social, political and economic effects would now play out over 10 years rather than 30. According to Obama, many professional jobs, including doctors and lawyers, will also change as more tasks are carried out by machines.

Political challenges and leadership

During the nearly hour-long conversation with Ricardo Parreira, the former chief executive of PHC Software, Obama also linked rapid technological disruption to wider political stress and conflict, ECO News reports. During the talk, Obama indirectly criticised current US leadership, while also discussing the need for world leaders who listen to different views.