Highlights from Opening Night of Web Summit 2023

Opening Night featured Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales, Unbabel’s CEO Vasco Pedro, and Web Summit CEO Katherine Maher.

Web Summit’s Opening Night gathered some of the biggest names in tech, from Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and Unbabel’s Vasco Pedro to Web Summit’s new CEO Katherine Maher.

AI was the major topic of conversation on Centre Stage – a subject that’s sure to dominate over the coming three days in Lisbon.

Whether you watched in person in the packed Altice Arena, caught the action online, or missed out on Opening Night, here are the highlights.

‘We’re really happy and proud there are large language models reading Wikipedia and not just Elon Musk’s Twitter’ – Jimmy Wales

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, who has previously said ChatGPT isn’t a threat to the free online encyclopaedia, went a step further.

In contrast to media organisations and authors, Jimmy declared a willingness to have the site scraped by large learning models (LLMs) for the sake of accuracy.

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales speaking on Centre Stage. Image: Piaras Ó Mídheach/Web Summit (CC BY 2.0)

“We come from the free software world; open-source ethos. Everything on Wikipedia is freely licensed. You can copy it, distribute it, modify it … commercially or non-commercially,” said Jimmy.

“We’re really happy and proud there are large language models reading Wikipedia and not just Elon Musk’s Twitter. That’s not really a great source of truth,” added the CEO.

Jimmy went on to give some examples of how AI could improve Wikipedia – notably as a model that could run across the site, searching for negative statements that aren’t sourced and removing them.

Web Summit hosts ‘critical conversations about technology, society and innovation’ – CEO Katherine Maher

Speaking to an enthusiastic Opening Night crowd, Web Summit’s new CEO said that the event will continue to be a place that “brings together and connects people”, while advancing important discussions at the intersection of technology and society.

Web Summit CEO Katherine Maher speaking on Centre Stage. Image: Piaras Ó Mídheach/Web Summit (CC BY 2.0)

This was Katherine’s first time on Centre Stage at the helm of Web Summit, having previously attended the event as a speaker.

“I was here as a speaker in 2019, astonished at the size of this crowd,” she said. “It was up here, on this stage, I was able to really see Web Summit’s impact, and be inspired by Web Summit’s mission to connect people and ideas that change the world.”

Katherine went on to address the hopeful yet potentially divisive nature of rapid technological progress, adding that “Web Summit’s role as a place for connection and community is more urgent than ever … It’s the only event where thousands of us meet to tackle these issues through the technology you build, the companies you found, and the ideas you champion”.

‘We’re about to create much more wealth, and that’s always good for jobs’ – Unbabel co-founder and CEO Pedro Vasco

AI is set to be a pivotal topic at this year’s Web Summit, and two of Portugal’s leading entrepreneurs took to Centre Stage to discuss the technology’s wider implications.

Indico Capital Partners managing partner Cristina Fonseca, and Unbabel co-founder and CEO Vasco Pedro, on Centre Stage. Image: Piaras Ó Mídheach/Web Summit (CC BY 2.0)

“AI will automate a lot of the work we do today, and we should accept that,” said Cristina Fonseca, managing partner at Indico Capital Partners. Both Cristina and Unbabel co-founder Pedro Vasco were adamant that, ultimately, AI would be a job creator, not a job destroyer.

“We’re about to create much more wealth, and that’s always good for jobs,” said Pedro, adding, “there’s never been a case where an increase in GDP didn’t lead to more jobs”.

Both speakers took the view that, soon, AI will be ubiquitous in the world of work and in any new technologies. “Every piece of software that’s gonna be developed in the next decade will have to have intelligence embedded,” said Cristina.

We’re excited for the next three days of Web Summit 2023. Check out the full schedule.

Main image of attendees at Centre Stage during Web Summit 2023’s Opening Night: Lukas Schulze/Web Summit (CC BY 2.0)