Straight after lunch is the graveyard slot in Davos. Dead time between a cheese fondue and the excitement of Donald Trump’s arrival, when the world’s political and business leaders – along with a healthy smattering of tax exiles and hangers on – get to catch up on a few zeds. So who better to fill it than the British prime minister? Someone with the unique ability to put even hyperactive seven-year-olds to sleep.
The main hall was barely half full when Klaus Schwab, the World Economic Forum’s founder and executive chairman, welcomed Theresa May to the platform. It was even emptier by the time she had finished her speech 25 minutes later. There’s only so much punishment some people can take even in the pursuit of oblivion.
Theresa began by reminding everyone of what she had said in her speech last year. That the rich and powerful risked losing popular support if their policies weren’t seen to benefit their countries. In the front row, Philip Hammond, Liam Fox and Matt Hancock all winced. They needed no such reminder. They had a leader who had taken for granted a 20-point lead in the polls and had lost her overall majority in the general election. Still, no one could accuse the prime minister of not knowing what she was talking about.
After going on to talk a bit about Britain’s industrial strategy and her hopes for businesses in Hull – of limited interest to those who had mainly turned up in the hope she might have some new thoughts about Brexit – Theresa chose to make it personal. She wanted to talk about something dear to her heart, something that motivated her. Quite literally. The benefits of artificial intelligence.
Robots were good. Robots were the way forward. Yes it was true that the technology was still very much in its infancy. Speech-recognition programmes still left a lot to be desired, the Maybot observed in her all-too-familiar mechanical, disengaged delivery. She was very much looking forward to a time when she wouldn’t be speaking as if English were a second language, but it would be helpful if more people could acknowledge her pioneering work in using AI in public service delivery.
Just to demonstrate the advances her programmers were making in this area, Theresa moved one arm up and down in time with her lips. The audience was still not impressed. They had seen more intelligent AI at a toy trade fair in Korea and the applause lasted less than 10 seconds.
There was rather more interest in the three-minute press conference that Theresa had with Trump ahead of their bilateral meeting in the afternoon. It was the Donald who did most of the talking, leaving the prime minister looking on like a near-silent, awkward, animatronic bot. “We’re on the same wavelength in, I think, every respect,” Trump said. The prime minister looked anxious. She sincerely hoped not, otherwise she was in more trouble than she thought.
Trump ploughed on. “There’s nothing that will happen to you that we won’t be there for you,” he said. “I want you to know that.” It wasn’t clear if he was planning to be there for her personally or Britain. Both, possibly. Theresa tried to look pleased at the prospect. “There are going to be many great increases in trade, tremendous increases in trade,” he went on, thereby contradicting his former promises to put America first.
“We’ve had a great discussion,” Theresa said neutrally, finally getting a word in edgeways and trying to wrap things up. The press conference ended in chaos with dozens of reporters shouting questions at the same time. A flicker of relief crossed her face. Better to be a Maybot than a pussy-grabbing stable genius any day of the week.
