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The European Union and the US have agreed to increase co-operation in the development of technologies based on artificial intelligence (AI), placing a particular emphasis on safety and governance.

The announcement came at the end of a meeting of the EU-US Trade and Technology Council in Leuven, Belgium, on Friday, and followed this week’s broadly similar pact between the US and UK on AI safety.

There appears to be lot of disagreement in moral philosophy. Whether these many apparent disagreements are deep and irresolvable, I believe there is at least one thing it is reasonable to agree on right now, whatever general moral view we adopt: that it is very important to reduce the risk that all intelligent beings on this planet are eliminated by an enormous catastrophe, such as a nuclear war. How we might in fact try to reduce such existential risks is discussed elsewhere. My claim here is only that we – whether we’re consequentialists, deontologists, or virtue ethicists – should all agree that we should try to save the world. According to consequentialism, we should maximize the good, where this is taken to be the goodness, from an impartial perspective, of outcomes. Clearly one thing that makes an outcome good is that the people in it are doing well. There is little disagreement here. If the happiness or well-being of possible future people is just as important as that of people who already exist, and if they would have good lives, it is not hard to see how reducing existential risk is easily the most important thing in the whole world. This is for the familiar reason that there are so many people who could exist in the future – there are trillions upon trillions… upon trillions. There are so many possible future people that reducing existential risk is arguably the most important thing in the world, even if the well-being of these possible people were given only 0.001% as much weight as that of existing people. Even on a wholly person-affecting view – according to which there’s nothing (apart from effects on existing people) to be said in favor of creating happy people – the case for reducing existential risk is very strong. As noted in this seminal paper, this case is strengthened by the fact that there’s a good chance that many existing people will, with the aid of life-extension technology, live very long and very high quality lives. You might think what I have just argued applies to consequentialists only. There is a tendency to assume that, if an argument appeals to consequentialist considerations (the goodness of outcomes), it is irrelevant to non-consequentialists. But that is a huge mistake. Non-consequentialism is the view that there’s more that determines rightness than the goodness of consequences or outcomes; it is not the view that the latter don’t matter. Even John Rawls wrote, “All ethical doctrines worth our attention take consequences into account in judging rightness. One which did not would simply be irrational, crazy.” Minimally plausible versions of deontology and virtue ethics must be concerned in part with promoting the good, from an impartial point of view. They’d thus imply very strong reasons to reduce existential risk, at least when this doesn’t significantly involve doing harm to others or damaging one’s character. What’s even more surprising, perhaps, is that even if our own good (or that of those near and dear to us) has much greater weight than goodness from the impartial “point of view of the universe,” indeed even if the latter is entirely morally irrelevant, we may nonetheless have very strong reasons to reduce existential risk. Even egoism, the view that each agent should maximize her own good, might imply strong reasons to reduce existential risk. It will depend, among other things, on what one’s own good consists in. If well-being consisted in pleasure only, it is somewhat harder to argue that egoism would imply strong reasons to reduce existential risk – perhaps we could argue that one would maximize her expected hedonic well-being by funding life extension technology or by having herself cryogenically frozen at the time of her bodily death as well as giving money to reduce existential risk (so that there is a world for her to live in!). I am not sure, however, how strong the reasons to do this would be. But views which imply that, if I don’t care about other people, I have no or very little reason to help them are not even minimally plausible views (in addition to hedonistic egoism, I here have in mind views that imply that one has no reason to perform an act unless one actually desires to do that act). To be minimally plausible, egoism will need to be paired with a more sophisticated account of well-being. To see this, it is enough to consider, as Plato did, the possibility of a ring of invisibility – suppose that, while wearing it, Ayn could derive some pleasure by helping the poor, but instead could derive just a bit more by severely harming them. Hedonistic egoism would absurdly imply she should do the latter. To avoid this implication, egoists would need to build something like the meaningfulness of a life into well-being, in some robust way, where this would to a significant extent be a function of other-regarding concerns (see chapter 12 of this classic intro to ethics). But once these elements are included, we can (roughly, as above) argue that this sort of egoism will imply strong reasons to reduce existential risk. Add to all of this Samuel Scheffler’s recent intriguing arguments (quick podcast version available here) that most of what makes our lives go well would be undermined if there were no future generations of intelligent persons. On his view, my life would contain vastly less well-being if (say) a year after my death the world came to an end. So obviously if Scheffler were right I’d have very strong reason to reduce existential risk. We should also take into account moral uncertainty. What is it reasonable for one to do, when one is uncertain not (only) about the empirical facts, but also about the moral facts? I’ve just argued that there’s agreement among minimally plausible ethical views that we have strong reason to reduce existential risk – not only consequentialists, but also deontologists, virtue ethicists, and sophisticated egoists should agree. But even t-hose (hedonistic egoists) who disagree should have a significant level of confidence that they are mistaken, and that one of the above views is correct. Even if they were 90% sure that their view is the correct one (and 10% sure that one of these other ones is correct), they would have pretty strong reason, from the standpoint of moral uncertainty, to reduce existential risk. Perhaps most disturbingly still, even if we are only 1% sure that the well-being of possible future people matters, it is at least arguable that, from the standpoint of moral uncertainty, reducing existential risk is the most important thing in the world. Again, this is largely for the reason that there are so many people who could exist in the future – there are trillions upon trillions… upon trillions. (For more on this and other related issues, see this excellent dissertation). Of course, it is uncertain whether these untold trillions would, in general, have good lives. It’s possible they’ll be miserable. It is enough for my claim that there is moral agreement in the relevant sense if, at least given certain empirical claims about what future lives would most likely be like, all minimally plausible moral views would converge on the conclusion that we should try to save the world. While there are some non-crazy views that place significantly greater moral weight on avoiding suffering than on promoting happiness, for reasons others have offered (and for independent reasons I won’t get into here unless requested to), they nonetheless seem to be fairly implausible views. And even if things did not go well for our ancestors, I am optimistic that they will overall go fantastically well for our descendants, if we allow them to. I suspect that most of us alive today – at least those of us not suffering from extreme illness or poverty – have lives that are well worth living, and that things will continue to improve. Derek Parfit, whose work has emphasized future generations as well as agreement in ethics, described our situation clearly and accurately: “We live during the hinge of history. Given the scientific and technological discoveries of the last two centuries, the world has never changed as fast. We shall soon have even greater powers to transform, not only our surroundings, but ourselves and our successors. If we act wisely in the next few centuries, humanity will survive its most dangerous and decisive period. Our descendants could, if necessary, go elsewhere, spreading through this galaxy…. Our descendants might, I believe, make the further future very good. But that good future may also depend in part on us. If our selfish recklessness ends human history, we would be acting very wrongly.” (From chapter 36 of On What Matters)

Human life is sacred—not because of supernatural declaration, but because of the unique nature and glorious potential of the individual, rational human life: to think, to create, to love, to experience pleasure, to achieve happiness here on earth. A true "culture of life" would leave individuals free to pursue their own happiness—free from coercive injunctions to sacrifice themselves to religious dogma. Such a culture is what we must seek to create, as we do everything possible to fight religious conservatives' culture of living death.

There is tremendous apprehension about the potential of generative AI—technologies that can create new content such as audio, text, images, and video—to replace people in many jobs. But one of the biggest opportunities generative AI offers to businesses and governments is to augment human creativity and overcome the challenges of democratizing innovation.

The term “democratizing innovation” was coined by MIT’s Eric von Hippel, who, since the mid-1970s, has been researching and writing about the potential for users of products and services to develop what they need themselves rather than simply relying on companies to do so. In the past two decades or so, the notion of deeply involving users in the innovation process has taken off, and today companies use crowdsourcing and innovation contests to generate a multitude of new ideas. However, many enterprises struggle to capitalize on these contributions because of four challenges.

And while some small and independent creators are on the frontlines of the fight against GAI right now, it is important to remember that there are, and always have been, significant inequalities in what work is valued, whose work is respected, and who will have the power and resources to aggressively defend their work. For instance, hip-hop music was initially criticized for its use of sampling from other artists’ work and faced repeated copyright challenges which restricted the right of artists to use samples without paying for licenses. Anti-sampling cases resulting in mandatory licensing transformed a counter-cultural, democratized, method of making art into yet another tool that only established artists and record labels could leverage. Today, underground hip-hop artists using uncleared samples and mashup artists still find themselves locked out of key revenue streams like streaming platforms because of these restrictive copyright rules.

There are obvious parallels between sampling and artists using GAI tools today, but even artists working traditionally ought to consider how existing industry power dynamics would play out if there were vastly expanded “stylistic” copyright rules. Record labels, music studios, and established artists would have the resources and power to go after any creator that encroached on their “style,” potentially locking up whole genres and aesthetics behind licensing structures. Reducing every shred of human originality to copyrightable units that must be bought and sold is a far greater threat to creativity than new automated tools will ever be.

As more companies incorporate AI features into their businesses, workers are becoming increasingly concerned about the threat of AI replacing them, but one Adobe executive isn't so convinced, comparing AI advancements to the invention of the camera, Fortune reported Tuesday.

Ashley Still, Adobe's senior vice president of digital media, told Fortune that she doesn't think AI will kill graphic design jobs after the software company released hundreds of new AI features incorporated into its design tools on Tuesday.

Recently, I had a conversation with a well-known illustrator friend who was expressing his discontent about artificial intelligence. As our conversation escalated online, several creative professionals joined in, lamenting the supposed death of art, creativity, and, consequently, our livelihoods.

creativity, noun

A weighty controversy has enveloped the study of international conflict: whether the democratic peace, the observed dearth of militarized conflict between democratic nations, may be spurious and accounted for by institutionalized market ‘‘contractualist’’ economy. I have offered theory and evidence that economic norms, specifically contractualist economy, appear to account for both the explanans (democracy) and the explanandum (peace) in the democratic peace research program (Mousseau, 2009, 2012a, 2013; see also Mousseau et al., 2013a, b). Five studies have responded with several arguments for why we should continue to believe that democracy causes peace (Dafoe, 2011; Dafoe and Russett, 2013; Dafoe et al., 2013; Ray, 2013; Russett, 2010). Resolution of this controversy is fundamental to the study and practice of international relations. The observation of democratic peace is ‘‘the closest thing we have to an empirical law’’ in the study of global politics (Levy, 1988: 662), and carries the profound implication that the spread of democracy will end war. New economic norms theory, on the other hand, yields the contrary implication that universal democracy will not end war. Instead, it is market-oriented development that creates a culture of contracting, and this culture legitimates democracy within nations and causes peace among them. The policy implications could hardly be more divergent: to end war (and support democracy), the contractualist democracies should promote the economies of nations at risk (Krieger and Meierrieks, 2015; Meierrieks, 2012; Mousseau, 2000, 2009, 2012a, 2013; Nieman, 2015). In the literature are five factual claims for why we should continue to believe that democracy causes peace: (1) an assertion that in three of the five studies that overturned the democratic peace (Mousseau, 2013; Mousseau et al., 2013a, b), the insignificance of democracy controlling for contractualist economy is due to the treatment of missing data for contractualist economy (Dafoe et al., 2013, henceforth DOR); (2) a claim of error in the measure for conflict (DOR) that appears in one of the five studies that overturned the democratic peace (Mousseau, 2013); (3) an alleged misinterpretation of an interaction term that appears in one of the five studies (Mousseau, 2009) that overturned the democratic peace, along with in inference of democratic causality from an interaction of democracy with contractualist economy (Dafoe and Russett, 2013; DOR); (4) a claim of reverse causality, of democracy causing contractualist economy (Ray, 2013); and (5) a report of multiple regressions with most said to show democratic significance after controlling for contractualist economy (DOR). This study investigates all five of these factual claims. I begin by addressing the issue of missing data by constructing two entirely new measures for contractualist economy. I then take up possible measurement error in the dependent variable by reporting tests using both my own (Mousseau, 2013) and DOR’s measures for conflict. Next, I disaggregate the data to investigate a causal interaction of democracy with contractualist economy. I then examine the evidence for reverse causality, and scrutinize the competing test models to pinpoint the exact factors that can account for differences in test outcomes. The results are consistent across all tests: there is no credible evidence supporting democracy as a cause of peace. Using DOR’s base model, the impact of democracy is zero regardless of how contractualist economy or interstate conflict is measured. There is no misinterpreted interaction term in any study that has overturned the democratic peace, and the disaggregation of the data yields no support for a causal interaction of democracy with contractualist economy. Ray’s (2013) evidence for reverse causality from democracy to contractualist economy is shown to be based on an erroneous research design. And of DOR’s 120 separate regressions that consider contractualist economy, 116 contain controversial measurement and specification practices; the remaining four are analyses of all (fatal and non-fatal) disputes, where the correlation of democracy with peace is limited to mixedeconomic dyads, those where one state has a contractualist economy and the other does not, a subset that includes only 27% of dyads from 1951 to 2001, including only 50% of democratic dyads. It is further shown that this marginal peace is a statistical artifact since it does not exist among neighbors where everyone has an equal opportunity to fight. The results of this study should not be surprising, as they merely corroborate the present state of knowledge. This is because, while DOR ardently assert that four alleged errors, when corrected, each independently save the democratic peace proposition—multiple imputation, the exclusion of ongoing dispute years, an interaction term, and their alternative measure for contractualist economy—they never actually report any clear-cut evidence in support of their claims. One issue not addressed is Dafoe and Russett’s (2013) challenge to Mousseau et al. (2013a) on the grounds that our reported insignificance of democracy is not significant. Like the four claims of error made by DOR addressed here, Dafoe and Russett (2013) made this charge without supporting it. Mousseau et al. (2013b) then investigated it and showed that it too has no support. This issue appears resolved, as Russett and colleagues (DOR) did not raise it again. Nor have DOR or anyone else disputed the overturning of the democratic peace as reported in Mousseau (2012a), which has not been contested with any assertion, supported or unsupported. The implications of this study are far from trivial: the observation of democratic peace is a statistical artifact, seemingly explained by economic conditions. If scientific knowledge progresses and the field of interstate conflict processes is to abide by the scientific rules of evidence, then we must stop describing democracy as a ‘‘known’’ cause or correlate of peace, and stop tossing in a variable for democracy, willy-nilly, in quantitative analyses of international conflict; the variable to replace it is contractualist economy. If nations want to advance peace abroad, the promotion of democracy will not achieve it: the policy to replace it is the promotion of economic opportunity The economic norms account for how contractualist economy can cause both democracy and peace has been explicated in numerous prior studies and need not be repeated here (Mousseau, 2000, 2009, 2012a, 2013). An abundance of prior studies have also corroborated various novel predictions of the theory in wider domains (Ungerer, 2012), and no one has disputed the multiple reports that contractualist economy is the strongest non-trivial predictor of peace both within (Mousseau, 2012b) and between nations (Mousseau, 2013; see also Nieman, 2015). The only matter in controversy is whether democracy has any observable impact on peace between nations after consideration of contractualist economy. My investigation begins below with the allegation of measurement error.

The value of democracy has been taken for granted until recently, but this assumption seems to be under threat now more than ever before. As was explained in Chapter 1, democracy’s claim to be valuable does not rest on just one particular merit, and scholars tend to distinguish three different types of values (Sen 1999). This book focused on the instrumental value of democracy (and hence not on the intrinsic and constructive value), and investigated the value of democracy for peace (Chapters 3 and 4), control of corruption (Chapter 5) and economic development (Chapter 6). This study was based on a search of an enormous academic database for certain keywords,6 then pruned the thousands of articles down to a few hundred articles (see Appendix) which statistically analysed the connection between the democracy and the four expected outcomes. The frst fiding is that a reverse wave away from democracy has not happened (see Chapter 2). Not yet, at least. Democracy is not doing worse than before, at least not in comparative perspective. While it is true that there is a dramatic decline in democracy in some countries,7 a general trend downwards cannot yet be detected. It would be better to talk about ‘stagnation’, as not many dictatorships have democratized recently, while democracies have not yet collapsed. Another fnding is that the instrumental value of democracy is very questionable. The feld has been deeply polarized between researchers who endorse a link between democracy and positive outcomes, and those who reject this optimistic idea and instead emphasize the negative effects of democracy. There has been ‘no consensus’ in the quantitative literature on whether democracy has instrumental value which leads some beneficial general outcomes. Some scholars claim there is a consensus, but they only do so by ignoring a huge amount of literature which rejects their own point of view. After undertaking a large-scale analysis of carefully selected articles published on the topic (see Appendix), this book can conclude that the connections between democracy and expected benefts are not as strong as they seem. Hence, we should not overstate the links between the phenomena. The overall evidence is weak. Take the expected impact of democracy on peace for example. As Chapter 3 showed, the study of democracy and interstate war has been a fourishing theme in political science, particularly since the 1970s. However, there are four reasons why democracy does not cause peace between countries, and why the empirical support for the popular idea of democratic peace is quite weak. Most statistical studies have not found a strong correlation between democracy and interstate war at the dyadic level. They show that there are other—more powerful—explanations for war and peace, and even that the impact of democracy is a spurious one (caveat 1). Moreover, the theoretical foundation of the democratic peace hypothesis is weak, and the causal mechanisms are unclear (caveat 2). In addition, democracies are not necessarily more peaceful in general, and the evidence for the democratic peace hypothesis at the monadic level is inconclusive (caveat 3). Finally, the process of democratization is dangerous. Living in a democratizing country means living in a less peaceful country (caveat 4). With regard to peace between countries, we cannot defend the idea that democracy has instrumental value. Can the (instrumental) value of democracy be found in the prevention of civil war? Or is the evidence for the opposite idea more convincing, and does democracy have a ‘dark side’ which makes civil war more likely? The findings are confusing, which is exacerbated by the fact that different aspects of civil war (prevalence, onset, duration and severity) are mixed up in some civil war studies. Moreover, defining civil war is a delicate, politically sensitive issue. Determining whether there is a civil war in a particular country is incredibly diffcult, while measurements suffer from many weaknesses (caveat 1). Moreover, there is no linear link: civil wars are just as unlikely in democracies as in dictatorships (caveat 2). Civil war is most likely in times of political change. Democratization is a very unpredictable, dangerous process, increasing the chance of civil war significantly. Hybrid systems are at risk as well: the chance of civil war is much higher compared to other political systems (caveat 3). More specifcally, both the strength and type of political institutions matter when explaining civil war. However, the type of political system (e.g. democracy or dictatorship) is not the decisive factor at all (caveat 4). Finally, democracy has only limited explanatory power (caveat 5). Economic factors are far more significant than political factors (such as having a democratic system) when explaining the onset, duration and severity of civil war. To prevent civil war, it would make more sense to make poorer countries richer, instead of promoting democracy. Helping countries to democratize would even be a very dangerous idea, as countries with changing levels of democracy are most vulnerable, making civil wars most likely. It is true that there is evidence that the chance of civil war decreases when the extent of democracy increases considerably. The problem however is that most countries do not go through big political changes but through small changes instead; those small steps—away or towards more democracy—are dangerous. Not only is the onset of civil war likely under such circumstances, but civil wars also tend to be longer, and the confict is more cruel leading to more victims, destruction and killings (see Chapter 4). A more encouraging story can be told around the value for democracy to control corruption in a country (see Chapter 5). Fighting corruption has been high on the agenda of international organizations such as the World Bank and the IMF. Moreover, the theme of corruption has been studied thoroughly in many different academic disciplines—mainly in economics, but also in sociology, political science and law. Democracy has often been suggested as one of the remedies when fghting against high levels of continuous corruption. So far, the statistical evidence has strongly supported this idea. As Chapter 5 showed, dozens of studies with broad quantitative, cross-national and comparative research have found statistically signifcant associations between (less) democracy and (more) corruption. However, there are vast problems around conceptualization (caveat 1) and measurement (caveat 2) of ‘corruption’. Another caveat is that democratizing countries are the poorest performers with regard to controlling corruption (caveat 3). Moreover, it is not democracy in general, but particular political institutions which have an impact on the control of corruption; and a free press also helps a lot in order to limit corruptive practices in a country (caveat 4). In addition, democracies seem to be less affected by corruption than dictatorships, but at the same time, there is clear evidence that economic factors have more explanatory power (caveat 5). In conclusion, more democracy means less corruption, but we need to be modest (as other factors matter more) and cautious (as there are many caveats). The perceived impact of democracy on development has been highly contested as well (see Chapter 6). Some scholars argue that democratic systems have a positive impact, while others argue that high levels of democracy actually reduce the levels of economic growth and development. Particularly since the 1990s, statistical studies have focused on this debate, and the empirical evidence is clear: there is no direct impact of democracy on development. Hence, both approaches cannot be supported (see caveat 1). The indirect impact via other factors is also questionable (caveat 2). Moreover, there is too much variation in levels of economic growth and development among the dictatorial systems, and there are huge regional differences (caveat 3). Adopting a one-size-ftsall approach would not be wise at all. In addition, in order to increase development, it would be better to focus on alternative factors such as improving institutional quality and good governance (caveat 4). There is not suffcient evidence to state that democracy has instrumental value, at least not with regard to economic growth. However, future research needs to include broader concepts and measurements of development in their models, as so far studies have mainly focused on explaining cross-national differences in growth of GDP (caveat 5). Overall, the instrumental value of democracy is—at best—tentative, or—if being less mild—simply non-existent. Democracy is not necessarily better than any alternative form of government. With regard to many of the expected benefts—such as less war, less corruption and more economic development—democracy does deliver, but so do nondemocratic systems. High or low levels of democracy do not make a distinctive difference. Mid-range democracy levels do matter though. Hybrid systems can be associated with many negative outcomes, while this is also the case for democratizing countries. Moreover, other explanations—typically certain favourable economic factors in a country—are much more powerful to explain the expected benefts, at least compared to the single fact that a country is a democracy or not. The impact of democracy fades away in the powerful shadows of the economic factors.8

Does Donald Trump’s act of constitutional vandalism in inciting mob violence presage an end to America’s greatness or the rebirth of a country that has lost its way? After last week’s unprecedented scenes of mayhem and wanton destruction in Washington’s Capitol building, the notion of a rebirth seems far-fetched. Worse could follow in the waning days of his presidency if Trump gives full vent to his vindictive nature by inflaming his hardcore supporters or initiating an international crisis. Without bipartisan support, impeachment risks turning Trump into a martyr and further polarising the electorate. But American resilience and the capacity for renewal should never be underestimated. The Trump-inspired insurrection against the people’s house may be the shock the country needs to realise it has come to a fork in the road. Unconstrained populism is the low road that leads to dysfunction, division, violence and the anarchy of the mob. Joe Biden’s task is to bring America’s warring tribes to their senses and reverse the palpable decline in civic pride and principled behaviour that has debased the nation’s political culture. Can he do it? Sceptics — and there are many — doubt Biden’s empathy and compassion are enough to heal the grievous wounds Trump has inflicted on the US body politic. But this could be a case of “cometh the hour, cometh the man”. Dismissed as a weak and ineffectual presidential candidate less than a year ago, a reinvigorated Biden has come roaring back to life, visibly growing in stature since his emphatic defeat of Trump at the ballot box. The unexpected Democratic triumph in the two Georgia Senate run-off elections has gifted Biden rare control of both houses of congress. Well versed in the realities of congressional power, Biden is unlikely to look this gift horse in the mouth. As Trump’s hold on the media and electorate loosens, Biden has seized the moral and political high ground by defending the constitution, calling for national unity and holding Trump to account for the chaos that has paralysed the country. The contrast couldn’t be greater. Biden’s unifying message is resonating across the political divide while Trump’s crass, self-serving behaviour is turning off an increasing number of Americans. A highly unusual public declaration calling on the military to refrain from involvement in Trump’s attempt to delegitimise the election results by all 10 living former US defence secretaries — including two appointed and fired by Trump — was an early sign the pendulum was beginning to swing against the man who glories in his capacity to hire and fire at will. But this is not reality TV. In the real world there are consequences. One is that powerful people will strike back. Although it was to be expected that the handful of longstanding, dissident Republicans such as Senator Mitt Romney would ramp up their criticisms of a man they clearly despise, Trump didn’t anticipate once stalwart loyalists throwing in the towel. Republican royalty in the form of Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell and leading conservative Lindsey Graham have clearly had enough, distancing themselves from a president they once defended. Opportunists such as Ted Cruz, who hope to inherit Trump’s crown and voter base, risk having their presidential ambitions derailed by their ill-conceived and futile attempt to derail Biden’s certification as president. The lesson for Australia is that America’s democratic deficit is ours, too. Our democracy sprang from the same classical and Enlightenment philosophers who profoundly influenced the authors of the US constitution. And we suffer many of the same afflictions, although mob violence has thankfully not yet scarred the offices of our elected representatives or the halls of Parliament House. The realisation that what happened in the US could happen anywhere will galvanise democracies everywhere, helping Biden in his quest to reunify the nation and push back against autocratic governments invested in democratic failure. Restoring the moral authority of the presidency, and faith in the foundational pillars of American democracy, is an essential first step to restoring US greatness, something Trump never understood. But the world’s dictators well understand the connection. That’s why they are gleefully portraying America’s travails as irrefutable evidence of a failing political system unable to deliver the national unity and social discipline required of great countries. They have a point. If the US is a country at war with itself, so are many other leading democracies. The cancel culture intolerance that infects them is symptomatic of societies tribalising along racial, ethnic and identify lines rather than being united by common interests, values, traditions and institutions. In attempting to heal his country, Biden may find activists in his own party as much of a problem as the insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol. In addressing the many domestic problems the country confronts, Biden must be careful not to neglect the very real challenges that will be thrown at him by autocratic competitors and adversaries anxious to capitalise on Washington’s disarray. The first challenge may come from China as it ramps up pressure on Hong Kong under its draconian national security law. Chinese officials are already arguing there is no difference between their crackdown on dissidents who “illegally” occupied the Hong Kong Legislative Council last year and US authorities restoring law and order in the Capitol. This is spurious. There is no moral equivalence between a society that defends its democratic institutions and one that subjugates its people to the dictates of an autocrat. While authoritarian governments will continue to exploit the shocking optics of America’s “citadel of freedom” under mob attack, the reality is that only a vibrant and resilient democracy could have survived such an attack without breaking. This is a triumph, not a defeat. US democracy has survived the ultimate stress test and will emerge stronger for it.

The year 2020 has seen the world besieged by a pandemic that has claimed millions of lives. The stability that most of the world enjoyed after the Cold War has perhaps been permanently disrupted, and all nations are struggling to adjust to these abrupt changes. When the new millennium dawned, the 21st century was hailed optimistically as the century of democracy. The future looked bright, as many erstwhile authoritarian and hybrid regimes, such as Armenia, the Gambia, Malaysia, Myanmar and Tunisia, became democracies. The will of the people as the only legitimate form of authority seemed to be a popular and rapidly spreading ideal. Unfortunately, the Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated a trend of increasing authoritarianism, across the globe, with many countries sliding back down the democratic scale. Myanmar, which had been a fledgling democracy just beginning to recover from decades of military rule, fell victim to a military coup, the leaders of which even cited faulty elections as the justification for their course of action. Perhaps the greatest blow to democratic ideals was the fall of the people’s government in Afghanistan, which has seen war being waged for the sake of preserving democratic principles. Significantly, the United States, the bastion of global democracy, fell victim to authoritarian tendencies itself, and was knocked down a significant number of steps on the democratic scale. Amid such geopolitical upheaval, the pandemic has raged on. Repeated outbreaks in different parts of the world simultaneously have made the disease all the more difficult to fight, and the toll it has taken has been grievous. However, even in this hour of despair, hope remains. Countries across the world have come together to fight this disease, and this has ushered in a period of unprecedented global cooperation. Popular protests for better government in countries like Sudan and Chile have led to important reforms. In Malawi, a landmark decision to annul fraudulent election results set an important precedent, one representing the victory of democratic, independent institutions over government pressure. Successful elections in Montenegro and Bolivia, as well as protests against government corruption in Bulgaria, are further examples of the resilience of democracy. The global urge for democratic governance thus clearly remains strong. However, the pandemic has emboldened several governments to double down on popular expression, and push for more direct control. An example of this tendency is Hungary, which passed several ordinances limiting citizens’ rights and giving more power to Viktor Orbán’s government—under the pretext of bringing the pandemic under control.

DW Akademie: You published a research paper that concluded: "Alarmist narratives about online misinformation continue to gain traction despite evidence that its prevalence and impact are overstated." How did you come to this conclusion?

There is certainly a 'fake-news' and 'misinformation' hype that started after the 2016 US presidential election [which Donald Trump won] and Brexit [when the UK voted to leave the European Union in a referendum]. Most observers didn't see Trump and Brexit coming and were quick to blame misinformation and people's gullibility for the election of Trump and Brexit. To be fair, there was misinformation surrounding these events, but many jumped to the conclusion that because there was misinformation, it must be misinformation that caused these events. And I think that's wrong, the data doesn't support it.

Without a doubt, print journalism is dying. However, not all hope is lost: journalism can be kept alive as long as news outlets adapt to their new audience in the online landscape.

2024 has started with the slow death of journalism as several papers and magazines have laid off large numbers of people, including The Los Angeles Times, Time Magazine, National Geographic, The Wall Street Journal and many local papers as well.

How do you think investigative journalism has adapted to new technologies?

New technologies have been very transformative for investigative journalism, especially to help journalists’ processes, like indexation of large amounts of documents. There are many processes that can be automated that 20 years ago or less could only be done manually, and that took a great deal of time.

A recent spate of bad news for the news business has triggered yet another round of lamentation that journalism is dying, which is kind of funny when you think about it in the broad sweep of history. When you pull back your camera for a really wide-angle view of what has been going on for the past few decades, maybe a century for a good sample size, you start to see things a bit differently. I say this as a journalism historian who has studied the business side of news media for the past quarter century, written a half-dozen books on the subject, and followed recent developments closely for the past couple of years as media columnist for this publication. From this perspective, I can see that what is going on is a slow and sometimes painful process of evolution, but others with a narrower view see it as a dying off and conclude too quickly that it must be an extinction event. The problem is that I am now starting to lose my few allies in this long-running debate, so I guess I’ll just have to make my case more persuasively.

Jack Shafer at Politico, who has been a staunch defender of newspaper viability, seems to now be starting to lose his nerve with the latest bad news. As recently as October, Shafer was deriding the doomsayers, quipping that “like a bed-sored and gasping patient on a gurney who has shed all life support, the newspaper continues to decline its death sentence.” Now he surveys the latest damage—mass layoffs at the Los Angeles Times, Time magazine, Sports Illustrated and Business Insider—and seems to be wavering. “It would be far too dramatic to extrapolate from the disastrous week that journalism itself is dying,” he writes. “The journalism party might not be completely over. It’s human nature to interpret any bad news as the coming apocalypse.”

The great American newspaper ain’t what it used to be. At practically every newspaper in the country except for a fortunate few, hard times have reduced page count, eliminated news beats and resulted in the layoffs of thousands of journalists. The hardest hit, Margot Susca reports in her new book, Hedged: How Private Investment Funds Helped Destroy American Newspapers and Undermine Democracy, have been the chain newspapers — Gannett, GateHouse, Lee Enterprises, et al. — purchased and squeezed by private equity firms like Alden Global Capital. Nationwide, the percentage of newspapers owned by private equity rose from 5 percent in 2001 to 23 percent in 2019; they include such storied titles as the Chicago Tribune, the Orange County Register and USA Today, as well as scores of smaller papers. Some papers have been reduced to zombie versions of their former selves as the new owners have shaved them down to minimize costs, depriving readers of the comprehensive coverage they enjoyed in the golden age of newspapers. Susca, an American University professor of journalism and a former newspaper journalist, writes that these new owners have turned their backs on what she thinks is the true purpose of newspapers — to serve democracy — in their pursuit of greed. For a taste of the book, see this excerpt in Neiman Reports. As someone who’s covered the industry’s growing travails for some time, you can detect a bit of skepticism from my questions. Is Wall Street really to blame for the fall of newspapers? By the end of our conversation, she was asking me, “Did you just brush up on your Milton Friedman?” This interview was conducted in person and via email and has been edited for length and clarity. Without using the dust jacket, give us the dust jacket pitch for Hedged. The book investigates the last 20 years of ownership and investment in the American chain newspaper industry. Through entities like hedge funds and private equity firms, this investor class continues to dismantle the one institution meant to give voice to average citizens in our democracy. I ultimately reveal an industry rocked less by external forces like lost ad revenue and more by ownership and management obsessed with profit and beholden to private fund interests that feel no responsibility toward journalism or the public it is meant to serve. How and why did newspapers become distressed properties? Newspaper executives pressured by private equity investors chose mergers and acquisitions as the strategy to face the digital future. It stacked debt as advertising losses also mounted. But before and after the recession, investment firms and the private equity divisions of Wall Street banks created conditions that left newspaper chains hamstrung and in debt for billions of dollars after a wave of acquisitions and consolidations. Different private firms then profited off newspaper bankruptcies or debt financing.

OpenAI has signed a new licensing deal to use articles and content from News Corp media brands for ChatGPT training.

The Microsoft-backed company has been making moves to secure licenses to access troves of content and data to train its future AI models.

It was a privilege and honor to be invited to air my views on technology and the news. I went in knowing I had a role to play, as the odd man out. The other witnesses were lobbyists for the newspaper/magazine and broadcast industries and the CEO of a major magazine company. The staff knew I would present an alternative perspective. My fellow panelists noted before we sat down — nicely — that they disagreed with my written testimony. Job done. There was little opportunity to disagree in the hearing, for one speaks only when spoken to.

What struck me about the experience is not surprising: They call the internet an echo chamber. But, of course, there’s no greater echo chamber than Congress: lobbyists and legislators agreeing with each other about the laws they write and promote together. That’s what I witnessed in the hearing in a few key areas:

Elon Musk in 2020 said that artificial intelligence (AI) within five years would surpass human intelligence on its way to becoming “an immortal dictator” over humanity. But a new book co-written by a University at Buffalo philosophy professor argues that won’t happen – not by 2025, not ever!

Barry Smith, PhD, SUNY Distinguished Professor in the Department of Philosophy in UB’s College of Arts and Sciences, and Jobst Landgrebe, PhD, founder of Cognotekt, a German AI company, have co-authored “Why Machines Will Never Rule the World: Artificial Intelligence without Fear.”

6. Licenses Incentivize Data Substitution, Impacting Core AI Ethics Principles

Another consideration is that a decision made in a GAI case will have an impact well beyond it, affecting the whole AI-development ecosystem, as it might create incentives for data substitution. AI models based on ML learn from the training data. If the most adequate data to train a model requires paying a licensing fee, it would incentivize developers to cut costs and substitute that quality data for other sources that might not be as appropriate, but less costly. Doing so would be akin to changing the ingredients of a recipe with inferior substitutes. Inferior data could result in a concept commonly referred to as “garbage in, garbage out,”173 where the quality of an AI model’s output is directly affected by the quality of the input data.