The 63rd annual conference of the very secretive Bilderberg group is set for Telfs-Buchen, Austria, beginning June 11, and among this year’s topics of planned discussion: U.S. elections and artificial intelligence.
Few in the media have reported on the looming four-day affair, and what’s released by the group itself is barebones. The Independent, for instance, reported the meeting of the world’s elites will take place this year at the Interalpen-Hotel Tyrol, located in the middle of the Austrian Alps. And security, as always, will be tight.
Among the announced attendees are the United Kingdom’s George Osborne and Ed Balls; former EU Commission President Jose Barroso, and numerous top-ranking business executives from Google, BP, Shell and Deutsche Bank.
Those from the United States include Niall Ferguson, a professor of history at Harvard University’s Gunzberg Center for European Studies; Martin Feldstein, a professor of economics at Harvard University; Kenneth Griffin, the founder and CEO of Citadel Investment Group, LLC; Reid Hoffman, co-founder and executive chairman at LinkedIn; and Jessica Mathews, a distinguished fellow for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Topics of discussion are broad. The group said in a brief statement participants will be talking about “artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, chemical weapons threats, current economic issues, European strategy, globalization, Greece, Iran, Middle East, NATO, Russia, terrorism, United Kingdom, USA, U.S. elections,” the Independent reported.
But what exactly participants will be debating within those subjects isn’t known. And the discussions will very likely remain secret: “The area around the meetings is put into complete lockdown. … Already a zone around the Interalpen-Hotel Tyro has been established by Austrian police with security checks on vehicles entering and exiting the area,” the Independent reported.
Participants of past Bilderberg events have rarely spoken of their discussions, and nobody has taken official minutes or notes for public release. On top of that, journalists trying to cover some of these meetings have faced hostility from security officials, as well as arrests.
The official tag line of the Bilderberg meetings is to foster relations among European and North American leaders.
