Obama Tells More Than 10,000 People in Lisbon That Democracy Is Fragile and Governments Are Too Slow for Artificial Intelligence

Barack Obama told an audience of more than 10,000 people at Lisbon's Meo Arena on Saturday that democracy is "a blink of an eye" in human history, "a fragile idea that needs to be constantly renewed". The former American president was the keynote speaker at the sixth Game Changers Forum, his first visit to the Portuguese capital in 16 years, and was given a standing ovation, Observador reports.

Before the event he was received by President António José Seguro at the Palácio de Belém. A note on the Presidency's website described the meeting as "an informal conversation and an exchange of views on current international affairs".

Fear, tribes and slow governments

In an hour-long conversation with Ricardo Parreira, a former chief executive of PHC Software, Obama argued that when big disruptions come, people feel uncertainty or fear and "tend to fall back on tribalism, extreme nationalism or blaming immigrants".

He praised the European Union for giving Europe the most prosperous period any group of people had known, but criticised the slowness of Brussels. When democratic governments take too long to do simple things, he said, citizens who already find housing too expensive and jobs hard to come by lose confidence, and the promise of authoritarian leaders that they will "solve the problems by breaking the rules" becomes more attractive.

What is needed, he said, are leaders who value their own people's traditions, culture and history but can also say to those beyond their borders: "I see you; I know you have value and I believe we share a common humanity."

Barbs for his successor

Obama never named Donald Trump, but the target was plain. He described the "Make America Great Again" movement's idea of a "real America" as "a nostalgia for the days when racial minorities were silent and women knew their place". Recalling his own decision not to strike Syria, he added that "technically, a president needs to ask Congress for authorisation to start a war". Both ECO and Observador read that as a reference to the war with Iran that Trump began in February without Congress's approval.

A warning on artificial intelligence

"Technology moves very fast, but governments move very slowly," he said, quoted by ECO. "The problem is that we don't have the safety measures we need." Coordinating AI safety between the United States and China would be a challenge at a time of strained relations, he warned, and the social, political and economic changes that factory automation brought over 30 years would this time arrive in ten. Many tasks done by doctors and lawyers would pass to machines that "don't need food, don't need to sleep and don't ask for a siesta".

"One of my favourite countries"

Obama opened by saying how happy he was to be back in Portugal. He said he believed his administration had more Portuguese Americans than any before it, naming his political director, his energy secretary and his photographer Pete Souza, and, "more importantly", his two Portuguese water dogs.

As president he came to Lisbon in November 2010 for the EU and United States summit and the NATO summit, and in November 2016 his plane made a technical stop at the Lajes base on Terceira. His visit this time comes less than a month before the American midterm elections on 3 November; he is due to campaign in Detroit on 24 October for the Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed.

It follows by days the visit of the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who pitched the F-35 in Lisbon but signed nothing.