The World Economic Forum’s chairman didn’t call for AI to replace elections

CLAIM: A video shows Klaus Schwab, the founder and chairman of the World Economic Forum, calling for artificial intelligence to replace elections.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The video shows Schwab discussing a hypothetical future scenario, not endorsing it. Schwab, speaking with Google co-founder Sergey Brin at the WEF’s annual gathering in Davos, Switzerland in 2017, prefaced the scenario by saying that he has heard “fear” of how “predictive” technology could be used. He then asked Brin whether he could imagine a world in which elections are deemed unnecessary because the outcome can be predicted.

THE FACTS: The World Economic Forum and its annual meeting in the Swiss ski resort town are frequent targets of conspiracy theories and misinformation. The latest to circulate online is a video misrepresenting an event from more than six years ago.

The video, shared on Instagram, begins with Scwab saying, “The technology now is, the digital technologies mainly have an analytical power. Now we go into a predictive power.”

He then says: “But since the next step could be to go into prescriptive mode, which means you do not even have to have elections anymore because you can already predict what, predict, and afterwards you can say, ‘Why do we need the elections?’ Because we know what the result will be. Can you imagine such a world?”

The clips is overlayed with the text: “WEF chairman Klaus Schwab openly calls for AI technology to replace Democratic elections!’”

But Schwab’s words are not a call to action. It is clear from footage of the full conversation that he was posing hypothetical questions to Brin about the capabilities of technology in the future.

Before he brings up elections, Schwab asks Brin “can you imagine” that everyone in the room is sitting in the same spot in 10 years with implants in their brains, and he is able to immediately gauge the audience’s reactions to what they say.

Following that, Schwab poses the election scenario. However, the clip circulating online cuts off a key part of Schwab’s words. He actually begins by saying, “One fear which I have heard is the technology now is, the digital technologies mainly have an analytical power. Now we go into a predictive power.”

Brin answered Schwab’s question by going further with the dystopian vision, asking why we would need elected officials if decisions are already made for us. He notes that they’re “venturing into profound questions” — once again making it clear that the conversation is hypothetical, and neither man is calling for these imagined scenarios to become a reality.

The WEF also confirmed in a statement to The Associated Press that the claims made around the video are a “false representation of the actual discussion.”

“The World Economic Forum is in no way calling for AI to replace democratic elections,” it said. “These are false claims to discredit the work that the World Economic Forum does on serious global challenges.”

The WEF’s website has published articles on the topic of democracy and AI, none of the articles present a call to action from the WEF or endorse the idea that AI should replace elections.

This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.