“I don’t think it’s an accident that we have so much emphasis on automation when the future of technology in this country is in the hands of a few companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, and so on that have algorithmic automation as their business model,”

One reason is that companies are often choosing to deploy what he and his collaborator Pascual Restrepo call “so-so technologies,” which replace workers but do little to improve productivity or create new business opportunities.

far more value is created by using AI to produce new goods and services, rather than simply trying to replace workers.

The excessive focus on human-like AI, he writes, drives down wages for most people “even as it amplifies the market power of a few” who own and control the technologies

the obsession with mimicking human intelligence has led to AI and automation that too often simply replace workers, rather than extending human capabilities and allowing people to do new tasks.

“You are going to be made to choose, or at least you will be pulled one way or another.”

Time and again South-East Asian countries have said they do not want to have to choose between America and China

does not play by its own rules

How can it condemn Russia for securing a sphere of interest, when Western powers have done the same with Guam, the Falkland Islands and New Caledonia—territories belonging to America, Britain and France, respectively? “What is the difference?” she asks.

According to a YouGov poll in late March, 54% of Indians approved of Mr Putin’s leadership in the first month of the war (and, confusingly, 63% of Mr Zelensky’s). Fully 40% supported Russia’s invasion.

They blame the war on American provocation of Russia, including NATO’s expansion.

In Singapore, where officials have been gung-ho about joining in with America, citizens are more circumspect. Many ethnic-Chinese Singaporeans consume China’s state media, which tout a pro-Russian line. They think that Singapore should cosy up to China, and believe that America provoked the Russian invasion

When touring South-East Asia, senior White House officials mainly focused on finding ways of meeting countries’ economic and security needs, rather than lecturing to them about politics.

Vietnam is a secretive Communist dictatorship. Both are on increasingly good terms with America and wary of China, but are also big buyers of Russian arms. For their own security, they see a need to preserve good relationships in Moscow.

Most of the kit goes to Vietnam, which imports 80% of its arms from Russia, but hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of guns also flow to Myanmar, Laos and Thailand.

Although most countries voted at the UN in early March to condemn the invasion, many in their follow-up statements refrained from naming and shaming Russia, and later abstained from the vote suspending it from the UN’s human-rights body.

Concerned that it might embolden big countries to bully small ones, the city-state has placed sanctions on Russia

Though it is a big exporter of arms, South Korea has repeatedly refused to supply Ukraine with weapons. It has imposed sanctions on Russia, albeit more slowly than its Western allies. But since the war began it has boosted its imports of cheap Russian energy. (So, too, has Taiwan.)

the G20 as well as APEC meetings in Thailand and the annual East Asia Summit in Cambodia,

“The future of global order will be decided not by wars in Europe but by the contest in Asia,

responses to Russia’s invasion have been dictated first by cold calculations of interests,

They think Asians see America and its allies as hypocrites, who have themselves invaded countries and given refugees from war-torn places outside Europe a hard time.

a failure of the West to win the moral argument.

Yet many Asian countries, including big democracies like India and Indonesia, are reluctant to criticise Russia openly.

there is no evidence that Mr Putin faces any serious domestic challenge.

he knows that almost everything the West could do to him is already in process—short of a ban on Russian energy imports that Mr Putin surely believes is coming soon anyway.

the stakes for military failure could hardly be higher

all of these explanations undermine Mr Putin’s credibility, both at home and abroad, and compromise the effectiveness of Russia’s armed forces for years to come.

he failed to prepare the Russian public for the true human, financial and material costs of his “special military operation.”

Europe that it must stop buying Russia’s most valuable exports

given NATO a sense of unity and purpose

his army is ineffectual

his war has given Ukraine a stronger sense of national identity than it’s ever had before and transformed it into Russia’s bitter enemy

There is no plausible outcome in Ukraine that won’t leave Mr Putin and Russia far worse off than before February 24th, when the war began.

Central banks must ensure that the currencies are successful, but not too successful.

Caps on virtual cash would, however, mean that it would no longer be a store of value.

Physical cash typically satisfies three functions of money: it is a unit of account, a means of exchange and a store of value

That would turn the central bank into a mighty credit machine and an all-seeing tool of the surveillance state.

that lenders’ dependence on central banks would alter the balance of relations by giving central banks power to determine who gets credit.

Deposits are a source of cheap funding for banks. If they drained away, lenders would either have to raise money on pricier wholesale markets or scale back their lending.

Central banks want to stay in the money business by issuing digital currencies

The Bahamian sand dollar, the East Caribbean DCash and Nigeria’s e-naira are already circulating. China’s trial of its digital currency, e-CNY, has expanded to more than 260m wallets.

According to the Atlantic Council, a think-tank in Washington, DC, 89 countries making up 90% of world GDP are exploring a CBDC

The bulk of money is digital and created by commercial banks, albeit regulated ones. A cast of digital-money wannabes are vying for customers’ e-wallets. And central banks want to stay in the money business by issuing digital currencies of their own, making the questions Fahlbeck raised more relevant than ever.

Tesla, which on April 20th reported record sales in the first quarter, goes from strength to strength. Twitter helped fuel its rise.

As for the board, since it introduced a “poison pill” on April 15th, setting penalties if he lifts his stake above 15%, he has hit back. He has tweeted a poll that purports to show his followers are heavily in favour of shareholders deciding whether Twitter should be taken private, not the board. He has also noted how few Twitter shares board members own.

carbon-removal technologies have to pass several tests (besides obvious ones like being safe and legal). One is permanence: the technologies must be able to store the stuff sucked from the air for at least 1,000 years. Another is scalability: they must not have land-use requirements that are in conflict with food security. A third is cost: they must have a path towards a price tag of less than $100 per tonne of carbon dioxide removed (down from hundreds of dollars or more per tonne for existing techniques).

A similar AMC-esque project is expected to be unveiled in May at the annual plutocrat retreat in Davos hosted by the World Economic Forum (WEF).

As well as underestimating Ukraine’s sense of national identity, Mr Putin must have been highly confident in the capability of his armed forces to deliver a quick victory

“misperception”

“Intangible incentives”

Vladimir Putin may have invaded Ukraine to stop it turning West and becoming a successful liberal democracy, an example that could undermine his grip on power

“unchecked interests”

Mr Blattman identifies five “logical ways” why, despite all the reasons to compromise, people opt to fight.

As long as both sides have a realistic appreciation of the huge price of fighting

a call for an “international treaty on pandemic prevention and preparedness” issued in March 2021 by a group of 25 heads of government and NGOs.

“we must act on Covid-19’s lessons and innovate so that we can deliver swift, equitable health solutions to prevent the next pandemic.”

It’s not possible to talk about “AI for everyone” (Google’s rhetoric), “responsible AI” (Facebook’s rhetoric), or “broadly distribut[ing]” its benefits (OpenAI’s rhetoric) without honestly acknowledging and confronting the obstacles in the way.

how AI is impoverishing the communities and countries that don’t have a say in its development—the same communities and countries already impoverished by former colonial empires

Venezuela

In part one, we head to South Africa, where AI surveillance tools, built on the extraction of people’s behaviors and faces, are re-entrenching racial hierarchies and fueling a digital apartheid.

The AI industry does not seek to capture land as the conquistadors of the Caribbean and Latin America did, but the same desire for profit drives it to expand its reach. The more users a company can acquire for its products, the more subjects it can have for its algorithms, and the more resources—data—it can harvest from their activities, their movements, and even their bodies.

a “data colonialism,”

Over the last few years, an increasing number of scholars have argued that the impact of AI is repeating the patterns of colonial history.

The very idea treats languages like a person, with a name, birth date and birthplace. But languages are not like an individual. They are much more like a species, gradually diverging from another over many years. It would be as accurate to describe such jottings as degenerate Latin as it is to call them early Spanish—but that would probably not draw as many tourists.

the Russo-Ukrainian conflict could last in a semi-frozen state for decades, threatening international stability and periodically bursting into renewed fighting. It might even escalate into nuclear confrontation.

Possession of Ukraine has long been essential to Russia’s existence as a great empire; its secession in 1991 sealed the Soviet Union’s fate. Crimea's loss hit Russians especially hard. The great naval base in Sevastopol was vital to Russian power in the Black Sea region and had a unique place in Russia’s historical memory (owed above all to the great sieges during the Crimean and second world wars).

After 1945, the Soviet Union was the surviving empire. Now we are living with the consequences of its collapse.

Much of the Middle East is still living with the consequences of the demise of the Ottoman empire and of the British and French empires that briefly filled part of the void the Ottomans left behind.

America and its allies could, then, suffer considerable pain if they imposed on China the same sanctions they have inflicted on Russia. For that reason, they would probably not dare go that far. But they must hope that China does not dare to find out.

European sanctions, for example, initially spared Russia’s $2.4bn market for luxury goods: the so-called “Gucci exemption”. The same market in China is worth over $50bn a year, according to Statista, a data provider.

China, for its part, might curb exports of the “rare earths” used in many electronic goods. It could disrupt the supply chain for electric-vehicle batteries and other manufacturing niches

China’s biggest source of leverage is its own vast market. America might, for example, wish to deprive it of certain high-tech inputs, such as semiconductors. But a complete ban would cost American semiconductor firms 37% of their revenues, according to Boston Consulting Group, and jeopardise over 120,000 jobs.

China accounts for about 18% of America’s imports and over 22% of the EU’s, including many parts and components used in domestic manufacturing (see chart)

Less than a fifth of China’s trade last year was settled in its own currency. Much of the rest was conducted in dollars.

The combined total is over six times the size of the equivalent foreign holdings in Russia.

At the end of last year, foreigners owned $3.6trn in direct investments, including immovable factories, and $2.2trn in shares, bonds and other “portfolio” investments

China probably keeps about two-thirds of its $3.2trn of foreign-exchange reserves in Western government bonds and the like.

crippling sanctions on Russia’s central bank, removing from its reach about half of its foreign-exchange reserves

“WOULD THE US really dare to freeze or confiscate China’s reserve assets?”

a combination of more clutter and more things to hit could begin a slow-motion chain reaction, in which each collision produces more debris, making future collisions more likely.

The coming decades will require democracies to work together to recreate an international system that privileges their values

The EU GDPR, 2019 Cybersecurity Act, and Digital Services Act

outh Korea initiated the process to join the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement, a plurilateral agreement between Singapore, New Zealand, and Chile intended to strengthen digital trade and establish standards for digital cooperation

the India-Japan memorandum of understanding to enhance cooperation in the field of ICT was signed on January 15, 2021.

Like-minded countries must willingly set aside parochial disputes among themselves, adopt “good enough” solutions, and begin implementing an alternative digital ecosystem that reinforces shared interests and values.

the U.S.-led Clean Network initiative

the March 2020 Australia-Singapore Digital Economy Agreement,

apan’s Data Free Flow with Trust initiative

If the PRC continues to construct its own digital ecosystem, then it should not benefit from a digital ecosystem established around liberal values.

democracies would formalize frictionless data transfers between like-minded states and impose significant data restrictions on authoritarian regimes and their commercial entities.

Germany’s Digitalization Act, passed in January 2021, also targets large U.S. digital platforms and tech companies and will likely prove equally harmful.1

Using comparative advantage within the community of like-minded nations, while denying access and advantage to the PRC, is a more effective approach.

within the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement and the U.S.-Japan Digital Trade Agreement offer a roadmap for expansion.

Among democracies, localization requirements, data barriers, and discriminatory treatment of digital products, platforms, and components should be removed.

Expand digital trade provisions to include more democracies.

Reaching a consensus should require compromise on the part of all participants.

pursue a common agenda for the application of regulatory and policy tools.

This grouping should include the EU, Japan, India, South Korea, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, Israel, Canada, Australia, and the United States—nearly 2.5 billion people.

export controls, investment screening, anti-dumping/countervailing duties, and sanctions

Employ coordinated regulatory and policy tools across democracies to provide advantages to like-minded countries while disadvantaging authoritarian regimes and their corporate entities.

The first wave of the digital revolution promised that new technologies would favor democracy and human rights. The second wave saw an authoritarian counterrevolution. And the question now is whether we can engineer a third wave of the digital revolution—a turn in which we forge a democratic technological ecosystem characterized by resilience, integrity, and openness with trust and security, that reinforces our democratic values and our democratic institutions.

Rather than try to persuade the CCP to accept liberal norms and abandon its quest to build a digital ecosystem that reinforces an authoritarian governance model, democracies should set about building an alternative system and exclude the PRC from gaining nonreciprocal access.

Reconstruct a digital ecosystem that reinforces democratic values and the rule of law.

ITU continues to serve an important role in deconflicting radio spectrum and satellite orbits, but its latest efforts to expand into ICT standard setting, AI norms, and facial recognition rules should be resisted.

dvocates for an open civil society should push back against overreach from multilateral bodies in which the PRC has established undue influence.

hey should also bar domestic standards organizations from including, as members, PRC entities that have been designated as tied to the Chinese military, engaged in human rights abuses, or are under CCP control.1

to defend existing domestic and international standards bodies from China’s malign influence.

“We will shape emerging technology standards to boost our security, economic competitiveness, and values. And, across these initiatives, we will partner with democratic friends and allies to amplify our collective competitive advantages.”

Participation by the PRC and other authoritarian regimes must be limited to late-stage negotiations. If the PRC decides to adopt alternative standards, it can do so.

Establish new standard-setting bodies and block PRC influence

Democracies cannot take advantage of science and technology breakthroughs if they lack the comprehensive manufacturing and industrial base to actualize the advances through new products and services that span the commercial and national security spaces.

While the United States, Japan, Europe, South Korea, and Taiwan continue to make the most advanced and critical components for electronics, they have largely surrendered the building blocks of these industries and are dependent on the PRC as the principal buyer of advanced components.

prevent the PRC from using industry supply chains to develop coercive leverage.

Rebuild electronics manufacturing outside the PRC.1

he European Innovation Council,

f i g u r e1R&D expenditures of selected countries, 2000–2019s o u r c e: “Main Science and Technology Indicators,” Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=MSTI_PUB

has more than tripled over the past two decades, increasing from $677 billion annually in 2000 to $2.2 trillion by 2019

Commit to higher expenditure levels on research and development.

One set of U.S. initiatives that could be emulated is the combination of the 2019 supply chain executive order (EO 13873) and the 2020 creation of the Committee for the Assessment of Foreign Participation in the United States Telecommunications Services Sector (“Team Telecom”).

our relationship with digital infrastructure starts and ends with our smartphone or Wi-Fi router, which leaves us blind to the myriad of hardware, software, and commercial service providers that operate this system behind the scenes.

how existing frameworks operate

the technological, industrial, and commercial ecosystems that develop, manufacture, and maintain the digital infrastructure that their economies, militaries, and political systems rely on.

Develop a “common operating picture” for the technological, industrial, and commercial systems that create and operate digital infrastructure

.S. adoption of a GDPR-like law is “the first practical step the [United States] should take.

Align data privacy laws

fosters a multipolar community of independent countries, settling disputes through negotiation, transparency, and the rule of law

The Biden Administration is committed to promoting an open, interoperable, reliable, and secure Internet; protecting human rights online and offline; and supporting a vibrant, global digital economy. Certain countries, including the People’s Republic of China, do not share these values and seek to leverage digital technologies and Americans’ data in ways that present unacceptable national security risks while advancing authoritarian controls and interests.

can democratic governments, along with their companies and citizens, build the next generation’s digital operating system to protect global norms, prosperity, and security—even as the CCP seeks to undermine them?

employing regulatory tools like export controls, investment security mechanisms, and restrictions on data and capital flows,

there are existing norms, standards, and infrastructure that can serve as cornerstones.

imagining that convergence and market access are just over the horizon are over.

must abandon the fantasy that the CCP can be persuaded in any meaningful way to drop its challenge to the liberal international order and the digital infrastructure beneath it.

to accept that Beijing’s alternative system and its challenge to the global architecture are a present reality, not a future condition.

he world safe for authoritarianism by legitimizing its governance model,

by interrupting the spread of “Western constitutional democracy,” which in the party’s view has a number of distinct characteristics, including “the separation of powers, the multi-party system, general elections, independent judiciaries, [and] nationalized armies.”

o develop, export, and set the rules of—while maintaining control over—both the physical and digital networks of the fourth industrial revolution.

re-engineer the operating system of the international order into something that advantages Beijing’s regime, advances an illiberal worldview, and provides the party greater control of resources, industry, and information.

the pernicious effects of liberal ideology embedded in the international system.

The incumbent liberal international system was established following World War II. It is based on the Bretton Woods agreements, which promoted efficient foreign commerce, and global norms articulated in the United Nations Charter that center on individual rights, limited government, self-determination, multilateral institutions to negotiate disputes between states, and collective security to deter conflict.

his happens at a time of global reshuffling, catalyzed by the emergence of data as a factor of production, that raises the stakes and severity of the CCP’s challenge.

becoming the “operating system” for a new, illiberal international orde

over both the physical and digital networks of the fourth industrial revolution.

building digital platforms and infrastructure that risk becoming the “operating system” for a new, illiberal international order

new security threats for the United States arising from reduced global dependence on GPS

The dual-use nature of information technology systems means that they can serve commercial ends while propping up a national security system. And throughout, they collect and transfer data—the new, determinative factor of production.

ven five years prior to the completion of BeiDou-3, the system had already started generating $31.5 billion in annual revenue for online clients, including Chinese defense industry conglomerates like CASIC and China North Industries Group Corporation, an arms manufacturer.

“China-Africa Digital Innovation Partnership Program...[to] strengthen digital infrastructure, develop a digital economy, carry out digital education, enhance digital inclusion, co-create digital security, and build a cooperative platform [between China and the nations of Africa].”6

China also helped develop and launch Ethiopia’s first two satellites and provided meteorological satellite data–receiving equipment to Mozambique.

he first “overseas BeiDou [applications research] center” being located in Tunisia. Chinese experts have led BeiDou training sessions in Tunisia, Sudan, Egypt, Algeria, and Morocco.63

“BeiDou has provided services and related products to more than 100 million users in countries and regions along the Belt and Road and exported [those services and products] to more than 120 countries and regions.”6

The expansion of BeiDou services into countries that have signed on to BRI, and the displacement of GPS in those countries as a result, has been described as a key opportunity for the initiative.

BeiDou is a key component of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Xi Jinping himself has linked China’s rise as a space power to his overarching goal of bringing about “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” claiming that “the aerospace dream is an important component of [China’s] dream of [becoming] a powerful country.”58

In March 2021 the Iranian government signed a 25-year agreement with China granting Iran’s armed forces access to the BeiDou network

Indian media reported that Pakistani authorities intended to adopt BeiDou for both civilian and military purposes, with the country “completely [switching] to the BeiDou navigation system for all its critical military platforms.

he Russian legislature’s passage in July 2019 of a law enshrining cooperation between Russia’s GLONASS system and BeiDou caused concern among some U.S. analysts, given the country’s history of jamming and spoofing GPS signals over large areas

to supplant GPS as the number-one navigation system on (and above) the planet.

the BeiDou-3 constellation

he United States’ use of GPS-guided precision munitions during the 1991 Gulf War and the July 1993 Yinhe incident, during which a Chinese freighter lost its ability to navigate after the United States temporarily suspended GPS coverage over the Indian Ocean.

Chinese state media has identified its navigation services as central to “national defense mobilization,” while also noting applications in consumer smartphones, public transportation, and agricultural monitoring

8 satellites in geostationary orbit, 27 in medium Earth orbit, and 10 in inclined geosynchronous orbit. Another 5 BeiDou-3 experimental satellites—3 in medium Earth orbit and 2 in inclined geosynchronous orbit—also exist within the constellation, albeit on a different signal system

his phase builds on the 15 existing satellites of the BeiDou-2 constellation, which provides navigation services to the Asia-Pacific.

consists of 30 satellites launched between November 5, 2017, and June 23, 2020

The successful launch of the final satellite in the third phase of the BeiDou constellation (hence BeiDou-3) on June 23, 2020, made China the third individual nation (after the United States and Russia) to put a complete satellite navigation system with global reach into orbit.

“The BeiDou-3 Navigation Satellite System is formally commissioned!”

Traditional modes and mechanisms of international competition, such as military deployments and actions in institutions of multilateral governance, are insufficient to address Beijing’s challenge.

the Military-Civil Fusion strategy

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has also consolidated control over the management decisions of both state-owned and ostensibly private corporations like Alibaba.

Economic statecraft is traditionally defined in the West as a suite of policy tools, including sanctions, export restrictions, and investment screening.

hey wield significant influence over society and political institutions; retain massive amounts of data globally, including on people; and are the primary incubators of cutting-edge innovations that will define the next era of economic

Corporations are the defining instruments of 21st-century strategic competition.

China’s digital strategy creates the prospect of a Chinese-led digital bloc that operates telecommunications, financial payments, e-commerce, logistics, internet, and satellite navigation separate from the rest of the world.

China’s industrial policy could subvert the incentive structures that underpin innovation—the engine of economic and military power—including the competitive and financial returns inherent in ingenuity and the laws that protect global markets.

to entice foreign companies to establish R&D facilities in China.3

According to Tai Ming Cheung, this policy encourages the “going out” of Chinese firms to gain access to foreign R&D and technology

In October 2021, Tokyo appointed a new minister of economic security to—among other things—counter economic espionage.35

In 2020 the European Commission proposed hiring “civilian spy catchers” to protect research and innovation developed within research universities from being

he cost of PRC IP theft for the U.S. economy at $400–$600 billion a year.

China has developed a systematic approach to identifying, targeting, and acquiring IP and talent from around the world. IP theft erodes the long-term competitiveness of global companies, especially as stolen IP is absorbed and repurposed by Chinese firms to compete in global markets.

Acquisition of foreign IP through both licit and illicit means and the subversion of strategic industries through overcapitalization

across 1,741 guidance funds, including at least $60 billion specifically allocated to the integrated circuity industry via the National IC Industry Investment Fund (Big Fund).

the Big Fund aims to subvert the global semiconductor industry by creating overcapacity, just as China did in the solar and LED industries.

China has invested over $100 billion into the semiconductor industry, while also heavily subsidizing the purchase of Chinese chips domestically and targeting foreign semiconductor firms to acquire IP.

technological capacity requires manufacturing capacity.

“China’s Head Start: CCP Industrial Policy for Global Automotive Ascendance,” Horizon Advisory, June 18, 2021, available at https://issuu.com/horizonadvisory/docs/horizon_advisory_-_china_s_head_star

hina dominates global production of the basket of minerals necessary for emerging technologies, including cobalt, lithium, and nickel

China’s primary Internet of Things module manufacturer, Quectel, controls more than a third of the global market,26

rare earths

In 2018 the U.S. Department of Defense concluded that China poses a “significant and growing risk to the supply of materials deemed strategic and critical to U.S. national security.”

China continues to control global rare earth production,

China restricted rare earth exports to Japan in retaliation for disputes over the sovereignty of the Senkaku Islands.

by controlling value chains for emerging industries, which grants coercive leverage.

China’s propaganda and dissemination of disinformation could also help stir up popular unrest or shape voter preferences, skewing the incentives and priorities of democratic governments.

TikTok is owned and controlled by ByteDance, a Chinese company, and in August 2021 the Chinese government, through a state-owned entity, claimed a board seat and stake in ByteDance.20 ByteDance—and through it the Chinese government—are reportedly able to access the information of U.S.-based TikTok users.

hina’s global digital architecture allows it to shape the digital environment—not only to obstruct competitors’ activities

China-Africa Partnership Plan on Digital Innovation to solidify China’s position on the continent,

s of 2021, Huawei alone had built 50% of the African continent’s 3G networks and 70% of its 4G networks.14

Some date Huawei’s first forays into African countries back to 1996.1