当世界聚在大连谈论AI：夏季达沃斯，和一个“规模化创新”的时代

Today we'll talk about a name that's appeared again and again in the news these past few days — Summer Davos.

In these very days, the seaside city of Dalian in northeastern China has welcomed a grand-scale international gathering.

Over 1,700 guests, from more than ninety countries and regions.

Among them are heads of multinational firms, government officials from many nations, and scholars at the frontier of technology and thought.

So what, exactly, is this grand event known as Summer Davos all about?

To explain it clearly, we must first return to the word 'Davos' itself.

Davos was originally just a quiet little town in Europe.

But for decades, every winter, the world's most influential figures — statesmen, tycoons, top scholars — have gathered here to discuss the direction of the world economy.

Gradually, Davos long ago transcended being a place name and became a symbol of high-level global dialogue.

And our subject today is its summer chapter.

It has a rather formal name: the Annual Meeting of the New Champions.

As the name suggests, it focuses more on rising emerging economies and innovative firms.

Since 2007, it has been rooted in China, held each summer in Dalian or Tianjin in turn.

This is also why people affectionately call it Summer Davos.

This year's theme is concise — just four words: 'Innovating at Scale'.

But behind these four words lies a core issue no one can avoid: artificial intelligence.

If, in the past few years, our talk of AI still lingered on 'how amazing it is,' then this year the focus has quietly shifted to a more practical question: how, exactly, should we harness it,

so that it truly serves the real economy and the lives of ordinary people.

And so, at this year's venue, you'll hear many words that are at once new and a little sci-fi.

For example, the personal AI assistant everyone will have; the humanoid robots walking into factories; and a rather disruptive concept — the one-person company.

It means that in the near future, a single individual, with the power of AI, may be able to hold up an enterprise that once required a whole team.

What a tempting vision this is.

But the other side of the coin is an equally profound anxiety.

When the most powerful AI is costly and not everyone can use it, won't it instead widen the gulf between people?

When data is everywhere, how are our privacy and security to be kept safe?

These questions, with no standard answers, are precisely where this great gathering's true value lies.

Speaking of this, I want to talk with you about a deeper layer.

For many people, Davos is a distant, abstract thing.

There they talk of trillions in capital, of macro trends, of the global order — seemingly unrelated to the daily life of you and me.

But the truth is exactly the opposite.

Every judgment these people argue over, and every consensus they reach, in the Dalian venue today, will in the end flow along unseen channels into our world.

It will become a new app in your phone, a new adjustment at your company, even a future profession your child will hold — one that doesn't yet exist today.

We may not be able to attend that venue in person, but every one of us is already, in truth, inside the very transformation they are discussing.

At the end of the show, I want to leave you two questions.

First, when 'innovation' becomes the loudest slogan of our age, what do you think truly valuable innovation looks like, for you yourself?

Second, facing a future in which AI is reshaping everything, do you want to be someone who passively adapts, or someone who actively uses it to change something?

These two questions have no standard answer, but they're worth thinking about slowly.