On March 3, 2025, Global Neighbours together with digitalswitzerland hosted “The New Era of AI: Perspectives on Competition Among Continents” at the private contemporary Chinese art collection of the Porsche/Piëch family in Lucerne, Switzerland. The event featured distinguished speakers: Dr. Feiyu Xu, one of Germany’s most influential AI experts and a member of the Global Neighbours advisory board; Prof. Dr. Hans Uszkoreit, a leading AI researcher, scientific director at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI); and Dr. Uli Sigg, former Swiss Ambassador to China and a member of the Global Neighbours advisory board, who created one of the largest and most comprehensive collections of contemporary Chinese art in the world.
Dr. Xu addressed the current state of AI models, particularly their performance in logical reasoning and problem-solving. She highlighted the rise of DeepSeek, an open-source model developed in China that has demonstrated remarkable capabilities in mathematics and structured thinking. Unlike previous AI systems, DeepSeek leverages reinforcement learning to enhance reasoning, marking a significant advancement towards AI that can think beyond mere pattern recognition. Dr. Xu also pointed out the economic implications of open-source AI, explaining how more affordable and accessible AI models could reshape global competition.
Prof. Uszkoreit focused on AI’s role in creativity, questioning whether AI is truly innovative or merely an extension of human knowledge. He emphasized that AI condenses and operationalizes accumulated human knowledge, functioning as an amplifier of existing insights rather than as an autonomous creator. Additionally, he stressed that groundbreaking ideas often emerge from minorities, which presents a challenge for AI, as large-scale models tend to reinforce majority beliefs instead of encouraging outlier thinking.
Additionally, Dr. Sigg, who has built the largest and most important collection of contemporary Chinese art examined the differing roles of art in China and the West. He noted that Chinese art traditionally emphasizes harmony and beauty, while Western art often confronts norms through critique and challenge. Sigg also highlighted Hong Kong’s role as a cultural bridge between China and the world, though changes are inevitable.
During the Q&A, participants explored how cultural differences shape AI models and discussed AI’s limitations in creativity and decision-making. Unlike humans, who can envision an outcome before execution, AI relies on trial and error and lacks an inherent vision of the result. Speakers noted that while AI has surpassed average human abilities in many areas, it still depends on human feedback for true innovation.
Thus, the event reaffirmed Global Neighbours’ role in facilitating high-level policy, technology, and global affairs discussions.
Organizer: Global Neighbours GmbH/e.V.
Guest Speakers: Dr. Feiyu Xu, Prof. Dr. Hans Uszkoreit, Dr. Uli Sigg
Date & Location: March 3, 2025 | The private contemporary Chinese art collection of the Porsche/Piëch family in Lucerne, Switzerland.
Image: Kiattisak – stock.adobe.com