The 2025 Sustainable Global Leaders Conference was held from October 16 to 18 in the Expo Park of Huangpu District, Shanghai. Mato Njavro, the Dean of the Zagreb School of Economics and Management in Croatia and co-founder of the Luxembourg Business School, attended and delivered a speech.
Mato Njavro pointed out through his observations that the general public's understanding of AI is often limited to specific programs. For example, if randomly asked "What is AI?" on the streets of China, people often respond with "DeepSeek"; in Europe, the responses might include "DeepSeek" or "ChatGPT." He believes that the core trend of future AI development will be the deep integration of the digital and physical worlds. AI will no longer be viewed as a single program but will permeate more physical scenarios, with China expected to play a key role in this integration process.
He illustrated this concept with a personal experience from his journey to the conference: the NIO car he was traveling in, being high-quality physical hardware, is deeply embedded with AI technology, showcasing the fusion of "AI + hardware." Mato Njavro emphasized that China currently has the largest number of installed robots in the world and has accumulated extensive expertise in the "AI + hardware" domain. He expects that this integrated model will extend to more sectors such as healthcare and intelligent manufacturing in the future, generating a wealth of innovative application scenarios that will inject new momentum for sustainable development.
From a global collaboration perspective, Mato Njavro expressed that AI technology and ESG issues have surpassed national borders, becoming global challenges and opportunities. He called for improved communication and understanding among the EU, China, the United States, and other stakeholders to collaboratively establish a unified global AI governance framework, achieving regulatory governance on AI through consensus agreements. Furthermore, he specifically highlighted that exploring how to leverage AI technology for sustainable empowerment under the ESG development context is a key direction for countries and industries to focus on in the future.
Mato Njavro further analyzed the challenges facing AI development. He referenced the human brain, which utilizes vast neurons to support creativity and scientific discovery while consuming energy equivalent to that of a light bulb. In contrast, current developments in Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) are investing billions, even trillions of dollars, to enhance data center computational and analytical capabilities, with energy consumption vastly exceeding that of the human brain's data processing. Although AI tools like DeepSeek and ChatGPT produce astonishing results through biomimetic intelligence, they still lack the capacity for groundbreaking scientific discoveries. He illustrated this with an example of scientists inputting geocentric model data from the pre-Galileo era into complex AI models, which consistently fail to overcome cognitive limitations and cannot complete the conceptual evolution from the geocentric to the heliocentric model.
Moreover, he quoted a Stanford University professor's view that while most AI models can efficiently complete tasks, yielding remarkable results like a "genius teenager," there are occasional instances of unreliable outputs generating baseless "hallucinations." Mato Njavro mentioned that experts in relevant fields can mitigate AI risks and erroneous knowledge dissemination through anomaly detection and timely corrections. However, young groups such as children and students are easily led to blind trust in AI and may believe that foundational subjects like history and biology do not require learning, relying solely on AI to solve all problems. He warned that if the new generation becomes absolutely dependent on AI's answers, it could lead to serious issues such as cognitive bias. He also emphasized that while AI is an excellent tool for enhancing efficiency and optimizing education, it must never replace human autonomous learning and deep thinking. A rational perspective on its value and limitations is essential.
The 2025 Sustainable Global Leaders Conference is co-hosted by the World Green Design Organization (WGDO) and SINA Corp, in collaboration with the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Foundation's Beijing office, with the support of the Huangpu District People's Government of Shanghai.
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