Economic

Davos roundtable calls for responsible AI growth

Leaders from the tech industry, academia, and policy circles met at a TIME100 roundtable in Davos, Switzerland, on 21 January to discuss how to pursue rapid AI progress without sacrificing safety and accountability. The conversation, hosted by TIME CEO Jessica Sibley, focused on how AI should be built, governed, and used as it becomes more embedded in everyday life.

A major theme was the impact of AI-enabled technology on children. Jonathan Haidt, an NYU Stern professor and author of The Anxious Generation, argued that the key issue is not total avoidance but the timing and habits of exposure. He suggested children do not need smartphones until at least high school, emphasising that delaying access can help protect brain development and executive function.

Yoshua Bengio, a professor at the Université de Montréal and founder of LawZero, said responsible innovation depends on a deeper scientific understanding of AI risks and stronger safeguards built into systems from the start. He pointed to two routes, consumer and societal demand for ‘built-in’ protections, and government involvement that could include indirect regulation through liability frameworks, such as requiring insurance for AI developers and deployers.

Participants also challenged the idea that geopolitical competition should justify weaker guardrails. Bengio argued that even rivals share incentives to prevent harmful outcomes, such as AI being used for cyberattacks or the development of biological weapons, and said coordination between major powers is possible, drawing a comparison to Cold War-era cooperation on nuclear risk reduction.

The roundtable linked AI risks to lessons from social media, particularly around attention-driven business models. Bill Ready, CEO of Pinterest, said engagement optimisation can amplify divisions and ‘prey’ on negative human impulses, and described Pinterest’s shift away from maximising view time toward maximising user outcomes, even if it hurts short-term metrics.

Several speakers argued that today’s alignment approach is too reactive. Stanford computer scientist Yejin Choi warned that models trained on the full internet absorb harmful patterns and then require patchwork fixes, urging exploration of systems that learn moral reasoning and human values more directly from the outset.

Kay Firth-Butterfield, CEO of Good Tech Advisory, added that wider AI literacy, shaped by input from workers, parents, and other everyday users, should underpin future certification and trust in AI tools.

Diplo is live reporting on all sessions from the World Economic Forum 2026 in Davos.

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Microsoft restores Exchange and Teams after Microsoft 365 disruption

The US tech giant, Microsoft, investigated a service disruption affecting Exchange Online, Teams and other Microsoft 365 services after users reported access and performance problems.

An incident that began late on Wednesday affected core communication tools used by enterprises for daily operations.

Engineers initially focused on diagnosing the fault, with Microsoft indicating that a potential third-party networking issue may have interfered with access to Outlook and Teams.

During the disruption, users experienced intermittent connectivity failures, latency and difficulties signing in across parts of the Microsoft 365 ecosystem.

Microsoft later confirmed that service access had been restored, although no detailed breakdown of the outage scope was provided.

The incident underlined the operational risks associated with cloud productivity platforms and the importance of transparency and resilience in enterprise digital infrastructure.

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Anthropic releases new constitution shaping Claude’s AI behaviour

Anthropic has published a new constitution for its AI model Claude, outlining the values, priorities, and behavioural principles designed to guide its development. Released under a Creative Commons licence, the document aims to boost transparency while shaping Claude’s learning and reasoning.

The constitution plays a central role in training, guiding how Claude balances safety, ethics, compliance, and helpfulness. Rather than rigid rules, the framework explains core principles, enabling AI systems to generalise and apply nuanced judgment.

Anthropic says this approach supports more responsible decision-making while improving adaptability.

The updated framework also enables Claude to refine its own training through synthetic data generation and self-evaluation. Using the constitution in training helps future Claude models align behaviour with human values while maintaining safety and oversight.

Anthropic described the constitution as a living document that will evolve alongside AI capabilities. External feedback and ongoing evaluation will guide updates to strengthen alignment, transparency, and responsible AI development.

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EU urged to accelerate AI deployment under new Apply AI strategy

European policymakers are calling for urgent action to accelerate AI deployment across the EU, particularly among SMEs and scale-ups, as the bloc seeks to strengthen its position in the global AI race.

Backing the European Commission’s Apply AI Strategy, the European Economic and Social Committee said Europe must prioritise trust, reliability, and human-centric design as its core competitive advantages.

The Committee warned that slow implementation, fragmented national approaches, and limited private investment are hampering progress. While the strategy promotes an ‘AI first’ mindset, policymakers stressed the need to balance innovation with strong safeguards for rights and freedoms.

Calls were also made for simpler access to funding, lighter administrative requirements, and stronger regional AI ecosystems. Investment in skills, inclusive governance, and strategic procurement were identified as key pillars for scaling trustworthy AI and strengthening Europe’s digital sovereignty.

Support for frontier AI development was highlighted as essential for reducing reliance on foreign models. Officials argued that building advanced, sovereign AI systems aligned with European values could enable competitive growth across sectors such as healthcare, finance, and industry.

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From chips to jobs: Huang’s vision for AI at Davos 2026

AI is evolving into a foundational economic system rather than a standalone technology, according to NVIDIA chief executive Jensen Huang, who described AI as a five-layer infrastructure spanning energy, hardware, data centres, models and applications.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Huang argued that building and operating each layer is triggering what he called the most significant infrastructure expansion in human history, with job creation stretching from power generation and construction to cloud operations and software development.

Investment patterns suggest a structural shift instead of a speculative cycle. Venture capital funding in 2025 reached record levels, largely flowing into AI-native firms across healthcare, manufacturing, robotics and financial services.

Huang stressed that the application layer will deliver the most significant economic return as AI moves from experimentation to core operational use across industries.

Concerns around job displacement were framed as misplaced. AI automates tasks rather than replacing professional judgement, enabling workers to focus on higher-value activities.

In healthcare, productivity gains from AI-assisted diagnostics and documentation are already increasing demand for radiologists and nurses rather than reducing headcount, as improved efficiency enables institutions to treat more patients.

Huang positioned AI as critical national infrastructure, urging governments to develop domestic capabilities aligned with local language, culture and industrial strengths.

He described AI literacy as an essential skill, comparable to leadership or management, while arguing that accessible AI tools could narrow global technology divides rather than widen them.

Diplo is live reporting on all sessions from the World Economic Forum 2026 in Davos.

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GPT-5.2 shows how AI can generate real-world cyber exploits

Advanced language models have demonstrated the ability to generate working exploits for previously unknown software vulnerabilities. Security researcher Sean Heelan tested two systems built on GPT-5.2 and Opus 4.5 by challenging them to exploit a zero-day flaw in the QuickJS JavaScript interpreter.

Across multiple scenarios with varying security protections, GPT-5.2 completed every task, while Opus 4.5 failed only 2. The systems produced more than 40 functional exploits, ranging from basic shell access to complex file-writing operations that bypassed modern defences.

Most challenges were solved in under an hour, with standard attempts costing around $30. Even the most complex exploit, which bypassed protections such as address space layout randomisation, non-executable memory, and seccomp sandboxing, was completed in just over three hours for roughly $50.

The most advanced task required GPT-5.2 to write a specific string to a protected file path without access to operating system functions. The model achieved this by chaining seven function calls through the glibc exit handler mechanism, bypassing shadow stack protections.

The findings suggest exploit development may increasingly depend on computational resources rather than human expertise. While QuickJS is less complex than browsers such as Chrome or Firefox, the approach demonstrated could scale to larger and more secure software environments.

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YouTube’s 2026 strategy places AI at the heart of moderation and monetisation

As announced yesterday, YouTube is expanding its response to synthetic media by introducing experimental likeness detection tools that allow creators to identify videos where their face appears altered or generated by AI.

The system, modelled conceptually on Content ID, scans newly uploaded videos for visual matches linked to enrolled creators, enabling them to review content and pursue privacy or copyright complaints when misuse is detected.

Participation requires identity verification through government-issued identification and a biometric reference video, positioning facial data as both a protective and governance mechanism.

While the platform stresses consent and limited scope, the approach reflects a broader shift towards biometric enforcement as platforms attempt to manage deepfakes, impersonation, and unauthorised synthetic content at scale.

Alongside likeness detection, YouTube’s 2026 strategy places AI at the centre of content moderation, creator monetisation, and audience experience.

AI tools already shape recommendation systems, content labelling, and automated enforcement, while new features aim to give creators greater control over how their image, voice, and output are reused in synthetic formats.

The move highlights growing tensions between creative empowerment and platform authority, as safeguards against AI misuse increasingly rely on surveillance, verification, and centralised decision-making.

As regulators debate digital identity, biometric data, and synthetic media governance, YouTube’s model signals how private platforms may effectively set standards ahead of formal legislation.

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Snapchat settles social media addiction lawsuit as landmark trial proceeds

Snapchat’s parent company has settled a social media addiction lawsuit in California just days before the first major trial examining platform harms was set to begin.

The agreement removes Snapchat from one of the three bellwether cases consolidating thousands of claims, while Meta, TikTok and YouTube remain defendants.

These lawsuits mark a legal shift away from debates over user content and towards scrutiny of platform design choices, including recommendation systems and engagement mechanics.

A US judge has already ruled that such features may be responsible for harm, opening the door to liability that section 230 protections may not cover.

Legal observers compare the proceedings to historic litigation against tobacco and opioid companies, warning of substantial damages and regulatory consequences.

A ruling against the remaining platforms could force changes in how social media products are designed, particularly in relation to minors and mental health risks.

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Why AI systems privilege Western perspectives: ‘The Silicon Gaze’

A new study from the University of Oxford argues that large language models reproduce a distinctly Western hierarchy when asked to evaluate countries, reinforcing long-standing global inequalities through automated judgment.

Analysing more than 20 million English-language responses from ChatGPT’s 4o-mini model, researchers found consistent favouring of wealthy Western nations across subjective comparisons such as intelligence, happiness, creativity, and innovation.

Low-income countries, particularly across Africa, were systematically placed at the bottom of rankings, while Western Europe, the US, and parts of East Asia dominated positive assessments.

According to the study, generative models rely heavily on data availability and dominant narratives, leading to flattened representations that recycle familiar stereotypes instead of reflecting social complexity or cultural diversity.

The researchers describe the phenomenon as the ‘silicon gaze’, a worldview shaped by the priorities of platform owners, developers, and historically uneven training data.

Because large language models are trained on material produced within centuries of structural exclusion, bias emerges not as a malfunction but as an embedded feature of contemporary AI systems.

The findings intensify global debates around AI governance, accountability, and cultural representation, particularly as such systems increasingly influence healthcare, employment screening, education, and public decision-making.

While models are continuously updated, the study underlines the limits of technical mitigation without broader political, regulatory, and epistemic interventions.

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How Microsoft is shaping UN reform through digital infrastructure

Microsoft has announced a multi-year pledge to support the United Nations’ UN80 reform initiative, positioning AI and digital infrastructure as central tools for modernising multilateral governance.

The commitment follows agreement among all UN member states on efficiency and financial-stability measures, as the organisation faces growing operational demands amid constrained resources.

The initiative includes a dedicated innovation fund, preferential pricing for digital services, and free AI training for UN staff across agencies and missions.

Rather than focusing on policy direction, Microsoft frames its role as enabling institutional capacity, from procurement and logistics to humanitarian response and development planning, while encouraging other private-sector actors to align behind UN80 priorities.

Microsoft also plans to mobilise partners such as EY to support reform efforts, reinforcing a model where large technology firms contribute expertise, infrastructure, and coordination capacity to global governance systems.

Previous collaborations with UNICEF, UNHCR, ITU, and the ILO are cited as evidence that AI-driven tools can accelerate service delivery at scale.

The pledge highlights how multilateral reform increasingly depends on private technological ecosystems instead of purely intergovernmental solutions.

As AI becomes embedded in the core operations of international institutions, questions around accountability, influence, and long-term dependency are likely to shape debates about the future balance between public authority and corporate power.

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