The issue of trust in science was considered as one of the priorities. It was stated that science, along with positive changes and technological breakthroughs, can carry new threats and risks with its discoveries. Therefore, public control over the use of scientific research achievements is so important. This is especially important with regard to those results that can be used by countries to implement their aggressive intentions. Speaking about trust in science, Nobel laureate in physics Takaaki Kajita (Tokyo) noted that for society to trust scientists, science must be, firstly, truthful, and secondly, understandable, that is, able to explain to society the content and possible consequences of its achievements in an accessible way.
Other current problems of our time can be highlighted that found a place in the discussion at the Forum.
Dynamic monitoring of the status of achieving sustainable development goals. The current state of sensor systems in combination with the latest satellite technologies and big data create opportunities for monitoring changes in environmental, biosphere, and climate indicators almost in real time; accordingly, this lays the foundation for creating a fundamentally new system of political and organizational decision-making.
Life in a changing world. The acceleration of civilization development processes makes it necessary to form a new paradigm of actions for life in a changing world. An increase in the level of uncertainty, probability and risk was noted in the conditions of the modern phase transition to new social principles during modern industrial revolutions (Industries 3.0, 4.0, 5.0). An increase in the number of natural, epidemiological and social emergencies was noted. This includes the creation of unprecedented systems for their forecasting, monitoring and warning based on modern scientific knowledge.
Alternative measurement of GDP. Today, there is an orientation towards economic development goals, the concentrated expression of which is the GDP of countries and economic entities. This is beginning to become a significant obstacle to achieving the multifaceted goals of sustainable development. The Forum proposed several approaches to the formation of an alternative metric system for measuring the achievement of sustainable development goals under the conditional name “sustainable GDP (sGDP). This conditional indicator could be formed on the basis of three key groups of indicators, which would reflect, in addition to economic results, the state of natural systems and a set of social indicators. Separately, it was noted what disharmony armed conflicts bring to the achievement of the goals of sustainable development, in particular, the aggression of Russia against Ukraine.
Education for the goals of sustainable development. Education and upbringing of youth is a key link in the extensive toolkit for achieving the goals of sustainable development. The dynamism of modern society and the variability of the state of the natural and social environment necessitate the construction of a dynamic system of education and upbringing of generations who will have to make decisions in the near future. This requires the introduction of at least two important measures. First, a system of training and retraining of teachers themselves must be introduced. Second, it is necessary to create a dynamic system with appropriate forms of taking into account the opinions of young people and their active participation in decision-making.
Evolution of artificial life forms. Today, humanity is on the verge of creating new entities of nature that have the potential for self-organization and self-development. The creation of new artificial biological organisms, the development of artificial intelligence of cyber-physical systems and machine learning are becoming a reality of our lives. This lays the foundation for a new, unprecedented type of evolution – the evolution of artificial life forms and intelligence created by man. The problems of constructing reasonable trajectories of co-evolution of society and the aforementioned artificial entities are becoming an indispensable necessity.
