Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good Seeing this newsletter as a forward? Sign up here. June 1, 2023 |
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How concerned should we be about the dangers of artificial intelligence? Very, according to a one-sentence statement released Tuesday and signed by a slew of AI scientists and executives, along with other experts and academics: "Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war."
As The Economist noted last month, expert views on AI's risks range from freaked-out to all-is-well. "Eventually, some believe, A.I. could become powerful enough that it could create societal-scale disruptions within a few years if nothing is done to slow it down, though researchers sometimes stop short of explaining how that would happen," writes The New York Times' Kevin Roose, who infamously was courted by a frighteningly possessive beta version of a Microsoft AI chatbot.
While risks are being identified across the fast-growing field of AI, a Foreign Affairs essay by Bill Drexel and Hannah Kelley argues that if humanity is to suffer an AI disaster, it might well come from China—which is just as keen to win the international AI race; is seen as having fewer safeguards; and has suppressed information about harmful developments in the past, avoiding groundswells of public criticism that can keep risky experimentation in check.
"(F)rom Chernobyl to COVID, history shows that the most acute risks of catastrophe stem from authoritarian states, which are far more prone to systemic missteps that exacerbate an initial mistake or accident," Drexel and Kelley write. "China's blithe attitude toward technological risk, the government's reckless ambition, and Beijing's crisis mismanagement are all on a collision course with the escalating dangers of AI." |
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Still Slow-Walking Help for Ukraine? |
As it has been since the start of Russia's war on Ukraine, the pace and volume of Western military aid to Kyiv continues to be a topic of debate, most recently centering on F-16 fighter jets. Long requested by Ukraine, the US has balked at sending any for fear of provoking nuclear-armed Moscow into a direct war with NATO. At the G7 summit in Japan this month, US opposition to Kyiv receiving F-16s appeared to thaw, as US President Joe Biden offered US training on F-16s for Ukrainian pilots.
Still, things are moving slowly, five coauthors write for Der Spiegel, citing European questions about the speed and efficacy of F-16 training and the quantity of Western supplies. "Training, yes, but no deliveries," the Der Spiegel coauthors write, characterizing the stance of some Western countries.
F-16s are only part of the broader debate. At the Stimson Center, Elias Yousif cites concern that a "wave of recent assistance" to help Kyiv prepare for an expected counteroffensive "may reflect the 'high water mark' of international assistance to Ukraine." As the Global Briefing has noted, some commentators are warning that Kyiv's Western backers must prepare to supply Ukraine for a long haul of self-preservation with an aggressive Russia at the door.
At The Atlantic, Kori Schake laments a tendency of Biden and his administration: to promise Kyiv will receive whatever it needs, then question whether it really needs more, denying particular weapon systems before later approving their delivery, all in the interest of avoiding escalation with Moscow. Washington, Schake writes, strangely seems more worried about provoking Russian aggression—including a nuclear attack—than are Ukraine and the European countries that would suffer most from it. |
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Lula Tries to Move His Country On |
Can Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (known as Lula) move his country past the era of his predecessor, the conservative-populist former president Jair Bolsonaro? As he tries, The Economist writes that Lula has his work cut out.
"In his first few months in office Lula has tried to overturn Mr Bolsonaro's programme," the magazine writes. "He prevented ten state-owned enterprises from being privatised. He also repealed policies which pandered to Mr Bolsonaro's base, including expansive new gun decrees. In February he suspended new gun permits and introduced a deadline of May 3rd for gun owners to register their firearms or have them confiscated. On April 30th Lula's allies in Congress announced they would put forward legislation to curb online disinformation, which Mr Bolsonaro is being investigated for spreading. … But (Lula's) desire to purge Brazil of his predecessor's Trumpist legacy faces several problems. For a start, Mr Bolsonaro can still count on a band of ardent supporters. … Conservative types are against (the proposed online-disinformation legislation), not least as it could incriminate Mr Bolsonaro. … Tech companies and evangelical Christians also oppose the bill."
Perhaps less pressing than guns and disinformation, Jakob Cansler writes for the World Politics Review that Lula is also seeking to revive Brazil as a cultural beacon. Besieged during Bolsonaro's tenure, Brazil's Culture Ministry has been reestablished. (A foreign idea to Americans, culture ministries are responsible for promoting national culture, overseeing institutions like museums.) Under Lula's first presidential administration in the 2000s, Cansler writes, "cultural diplomacy was about simply modernizing an already positive image of Brazil. Now, it's about changing an image that has taken on negative connotations—a much tougher task." |
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Globalization is coming to a face near you: As laid out in an excerpt published by Wired, Elise Hu writes in her new book "Flawless: Lessons in Looks and Culture from the K-Beauty Capital" that conceptions of Asian (and in fact world) beauty are converging around what sociologists had already identified as "a regional trend, in the 2010s, of the flattening of many desirable traits into a single 'Pan-Asian face': a blend of European and Asian features with the focus and favor lying in what sociologist Kimberly Kay Hoang calls 'a specific East Asian ideal—round face, thinness and even, untanned skin tone.'"
Hu, who led NPR's coverage of both Koreas and Japan for nearly four years based in Seoul, writes that such "flattening" is abetted by social-media; is trending toward aesthetic standards set by South Korean culture, e.g. K-pop; and is evident in the directions in which plastic surgeons are driving faces.
Hu writes: "Incidentally, the knock on the stereotypical South Korean 'Gangnam Beauty' (gangnam-miin), the name for a young South Korean woman who has undergone multiple plastic surgeries and achieved an 'artificial' face, is that these women have overdone it in the eyes of the public. Their critics believe these women have achieved a bland interchangeability among themselves, similar to the effect of using digital photo filters … The faces of Gangnam Beauties do often appear pleasing, but in a two-dimensional way. These patients aren't soulless, but their faces are devoid of texture, asymmetry, and surprise, making them seem slightly inhuman." |
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