ITK Daily | January 21

Happy Saturday.

Here’s today’s ITK Daily.

To be ITK, know this:

How Davos’ World Economic Forum became such a big deal: A look at why the meeting of bigwigs actually, kind of matters.?Grid

+ Associated Press put membership and partnership fees at “120,000 to 850,000 Swiss francs ($130,000 to $921,000),” while the cost of attending can range from free or heavily discounted for civil society members to somewhere between $70,000 and $250,000 for businesses and individuals.

+ CNBC?boasted of some 13 CEO interviews?on Tuesday alone.

If Turkey blocks Sweden and Finland, will NATO boot Turkey??Ankara has been one of the most steadfast members of the alliance for seven decades, but it doesn’t want to force the alliance to make a tough choice.?James Stavridis

+ "NATO needs Turkey to continue being an active and positive member. It also needs to add Finland and Sweden. No one wants to have to choose between them. It’s up to Erdogan to ensure that doesn’t have to happen."

CNN: US to designate Russia’s Wagner mercenary group as a ‘transnational criminal organization’

Tank dispute splits Ukraine’s allies as Zelensky seeks more firepower: Germany has rebuffed requests for its Leopard tanks to be used against Russian forces, roiling a meeting of defense ministers from nations aiding Ukraine.?WP

+ Germany has publicly linked its position on the Leopards to U.S. reluctance to transfer its own M1 Abrams tanks, which Pentagon officials have said are not the best fit for Ukraine in terms of operability and the time they would take to arrive.

+ German hesitation over sending tanks to Ukraine was likely driven by reluctance to take a leading military role rather than practical considerations.

+ Ukraine in the next few months will probably attempt to set the conditions for the liberation of Russian-occupied Crimea, first through long-range strikes and then with an armored offensive designed to cut ground routes from the Black Sea peninsula back to Russia.

Inside the urgent push to arm Ukraine for a spring offensive: Over the past few weeks, Ukraine’s Western allies have committed massive packages of mechanized armor to break the stalemate with Russia. But is it enough to change the tide of the war??WP

+ An American Navy SEAL was killed this week during Russia’s assault on eastern Ukraine while fighting alongside Ukrainian forces, Time reports.

Why are Ukraine’s allies arguing about tanks??FT

War in Ukraine: 'It is now time to think about a way out': Pierre Lellouche, a former junior minister of Nicolas Sarkozy, writes that the massive military aid given to Kyiv risks aggravating the conflict.?Pierre Lellouche

+ "Kyiv is beginning to understand that time is not necessarily on Ukraine's side. Hence the urgency to end the war as quickly as possible and to win it in the coming months with the strongest possible offensive."

+ ?"If Russia was to be on the verge of losing Crimea, a territory it considers its own, it could decide to use non-conventional weapons in compliance with its military doctrine, something leaders have made clear."

+ Pierre Lellouche was French Secretary of State for European affairs (2009-2010), then Secretary for Foreign Trade (2010-2012). He was also an MP (LR) for Paris.

Macron announces military spending to increase by a third until 2030: Le Monde reports the French President's new military budget addresses both the impact of the war in Ukraine and the need to strengthen domestic security.

Will strikes force Macron to back down over French pension reforms??AFP

+ Polls show a majority of the French oppose the president’s measures – and analysts say maintaining public support of strikes will be crucial to unions’ chances of forcing a U-turn.?

+ “A lot of the public opposition comes from this persistent idea of a French model that has to be defended.”

+ The unions are hoping to pull off a repeat of what happened in 1995, when prolonged disruptive industrial action combined with broad public support to force then-president Jacques Chirac’s government to ditch pension reforms.

+ The National Assembly is scheduled to start debating the pensions reform bill on February 6.

+ Then the lower chamber and the Senate have until March 26 to both vote on it.

+ “No president wants to use Article 49.3 unless they really have to.”

+ “Elections are what politicians hate most, because they’re unknowable.”

French pension reform: First day of protest emboldens unions: France's eight main trade unions and five youth movements are now trying to keep the protest movement going.?Le Monde

+ Opponents of the reform are calling for more action, especially on January 23 when the reform bill will be presented to the Council of Ministers.

Is life in the UK really as bad as the numbers suggest? Yes, it is: The past 15 years have been a disappointment on a scale we could hardly have imagined.?Tim Harford

Inside the European Parliament corruption scandal: Der Spiegel has obtained hundreds of documents from the investigation into the corruption scandal engulfing the European Parliament. They provide deep insight into the widespread influence peddling of a handful of MEPs and show that there may be much more to come.?Der Spiegel

+ Operation "Mezzo," an investigation that has been underway for several months and reportedly involves the secret services of five European countries.

+ Panzeri’s group was shockingly amateurish: They apparently received payment in cash, which they then stashed in private apartments; they held a conspiratorial meeting in a hotel that was full of surveillance cameras; and they made hundreds of telephone calls using unencrypted connections.

+ Nonetheless, the group was apparently able to operate undetected for several years, collecting bribe money not just from Qatar and Morocco, but also from Mauritania and perhaps even Saudi Arabia.

+ Early on in the investigation, the Moroccan foreign intelligence service DGED popped up on the radar.

+ The potential involvement of the DGED is a politically sensitive detail. Should it be substantiated, it would mean the scandal’s tentacles extend to the highest levels of the Moroccan state.

+ Morocco is also eager for political support from the EU in the ongoing conflict over Western Sahara.

+ For its part, the EU is counting on the Moroccan government to prevent African migrants from reaching Europe.

+ Compared to Morocco, the interests pursued by Qatar seem far more mundane. Investigators believe that the country was primarily interested in cleaning up its image.

Xi’s course correction reveals an agile autocrat under pressure?David Ignatius

+ ?"it is clearer than ever that Xi is an agile autocrat; his sense of self-preservation kicked in last month as he was nearing a precipice."

+ "Is Xi’s new economic-reform tilt permanent, or simply a tactical shift?"

+ "The Chinese leader is a master of going in two directions at once."

China turns on the charm: Xi Jinping seeks a break from foreign friction as he wrestles with COVID and a faltering economy.?Politico

+ Chinese diplomats are fanning out with a new softer message for international partners and adversaries alike. Gone is the aggressive?“wolf warrior” rhetoric. In its place, a warmer tone and a promise of economic cooperation.

The chip war comes home: The collateral damage of America's battle with China for the future of tech.?Insider

+ "getting an edge over China is apparently our government's most urgent priority."

India says BBC documentary on India PM Modi is "propaganda": Reuters reports India's foreign ministry on Thursday dismissed a BBC documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi which questioned his leadership during the 2002 Gujarat riots as "propaganda."

+ The first episode of the two-part documentary “India: The Modi Question” aired on BBC Two on Jan. 17.

Stand aside Washington, here comes Kevin Rudd: The ex-Labour leader’s strengths as a former prime minister, China expert, and close ties to Anthony Albanese and top Biden officials will be in play from day one.?FR

Chris Hipkins set to replace Ardern as New Zealand PM: Nikkei reports the education minister was the sole candidate to become new Labour party leader.

Jacinda Ardern's surprise resignation: The art of doing politics differently: Unprecedented in recent political history, where the art of knowing how to retire is rare, the departure of the New Zealand PM illustrates her mastery of the codes of communication.?Le Monde

The death of globalization? You won’t find it in New Orleans.?The city that was once the world’s gateway to America is betting it can win in a new and different era of global integration.?NYT

+ The New Orleans port is one of the nation’s busiest for agricultural exports like soybeans and corn. But it has struggled to compete for the lucrative imports that are ferried on huge ships from Asia in part because those vessels cannot fit under a local bridge.

+ Last month, the governor of Louisiana?announced?that a public-private partnership would deliver the $1.8 billion project to build the new container terminal on the Lower Mississippi River, south of the bridge.

+ As global supply chains rearrange in the pandemic’s wake, New Orleans’s proximity to Mexico and its position on the Mississippi River could help make it a crucial stop in what many expect to be a more resilient and supply chain of the future.

+ Some firms are looking beyond China for manufacturing capacity, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are retreating from global integration: Many are turning to countries like Mexico, India, and Vietnam.

+ “De-globalization is more of a slogan than something that is actually happening. If you’re willing to put several billions of dollars into building a new port, that’s a big guess that globalization is not going away.”

VA-SEN: Sen. Tim Kaine says he will seek another term.

George Santos has got to go: He’s a bad example to the young, an embarrassment to the old, an insult to the institution and America.?Peggy Noonan

+ 40% of Americans approve of the job Joe Biden is doing as president, according to Gallup.

Union membership rate hits record low despite votes at Apple, Amazon, Starbucks: WSJ reports the decline comes even as unions added more members than in any year since 2008.

Supreme Court poised to reconsider key tenets of online speech: The cases could significantly affect the power and responsibilities of social media platforms.?NYT

USDA moves to crack down on ‘organic’ fraud: The agency will boost its oversight of organic products in one of the biggest-ever changes to the National Organic Program.?WP

+ + Sales of organic foods in the United States have more than doubled in the past 10 years, jumping by a record 12.4 percent in 2020 to $61.9 billion as consumers became more concerned about eating healthy foods, according to the Organic Trade Association.

Amazon Web Services?(AWS) announced Friday morning an investment of $35 billion in Virginia by 2040 to establish multiple data center campuses across the state, according to Gov. Glenn Youngkin's office.

Google?cuts 12,000 jobs in the latest round of big tech layoffs.

Google calls in help from Larry Page and Sergey Brin for AI fight: A rival chatbot has shaken Google out of its routine, with the founders who left three years ago re-engaging and more than 20 AI projects in the works.?NYT

Vox Media?announced it’s letting go of 7% of its staff across several teams, including editorial.

As states ban TikTok on government devices, evidence of harm is thin: Some states’ have copied others’ wording, including mistakes, as some professors complain the bans rob them of a teaching tool.?WP

+ Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey (R) announced that TikTok was banned from all state-owned devices due to fears that the app, which is owned by a company based in China, threatened to expose Alabamians to “Chinese infiltration operations.”

+ ?On Thursday, Maine became at least the 28th state to ban TikTok on state devices, citing unspecified risks to the “sensitive and confidential data that we are entrusted to protect.”

Governments are banning TikTok for two reasons: It’s “American,” and everybody’s doing it.

Hardly good reasons.

+ Some tech experts argue that the sudden explosion of the bans, coupled with doubts over TikTok’s actual harm, is more a reflection of government groupthink — and an overreaction to an app they don’t entirely understand.

+ South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem (R), an early entrant to the 2024 Republican presidential race, told a Fox News audience that the Chinese government was using TikTok to “destroy the United States of America.”

+ “Listen, China hates us.” They’re “manipulating their algorithms to gather information on American citizens to use against us. Here in the state of South Dakota, we’ve taken action.”

+ The University of Florida this month told its 58,000 students over email that it was “strongly discouraging” them from using TikTok.

FTX founder gamed markets, crypto rivals say: Sam Bankman-Fried found ways to control the prices of digital coins to benefit his companies, FTX and Alameda, according to cryptocurrency investors.?NYT

Why Toyota spent years treating electric cars like the enemy: Once a pioneer in green transportation, the company is now uttered in the same breath as Exxon. What happened??Slate

GM, LG scrap plans to partner on fourth factory: WSJ reports a US battery-cell factory that had been in the works between General Motors and LG Energy Solution has been shelved indefinitely.

Britishvolt: How Britain’s big battery hope ran out of charge: Start-up’s collapse deals a blow to UK’s attempt to supply electric-car industry.?FT

Scenes from Tampa’s ‘dead mall,’ alive with nostalgia: At the transforming University Mall near USF, some still shop and work, while others come for the vibes.?TBT

9 trends that will shape work in 2023 and beyond?HBR

How large language models will transform science, society, and AI: Scholars in computer science, linguistics, and philosophy explore the pains and promises of GPT-3.?Alex Tamkin + Deep Ganguli?

+ GPT-3 has 175 billion parameters and was trained on 570 gigabytes of text. For comparison, its predecessor, GPT-2, was over 100 times smaller, at 1.5 billion parameters.

+ GPT-3 lacked intentions, goals, and the ability to understand cause and effect — all hallmarks of human cognition.?

How smart are the robots getting??The Turing test used to be the gold standard for proving machine intelligence. This generation of bots is racing past it.?NYT

+ Alan Turing, a British mathematician, proposed in 1950 that the test of machine intelligence would be an ability to conduct a conversation in an indistinguishably human way.

+ These bots are not sentient. They are not conscious. They are not intelligent — at least not in the way that humans are intelligent.

+ “We need a paradigm shift — where we no longer judge intelligence by comparing machines to human behavior.”

+ The technologies under development today are very different from you and me. They cannot deal with concepts they have never seen before. And they cannot take ideas and explore them in the physical world.

+ Certainly, these bots will change the world. But the onus is on you to be wary of what these systems say and do, to edit what they give you, to approach everything you see online with skepticism. Researchers know how to give these systems a wide range of skills, but they do not yet know how to give them reason or common sense or a sense of truth.

Technology needs more humanity: As the casualties of “progress” pile up, the self-assured march of AI and other newfangled technologies onto society demands a critical evaluation.?Eduardo Porter

+ "Why is crypto a thing, still?"

+ "You might expect some urgency to find a purpose for a technology that?consumes more power?than Australia, yet hasn’t been able to develop a real-world function other than paying for ransom, drugs or child porn."

+ "Technology does call for new tasks, opening the door to new jobs, but they too are biased toward?the highly educated and offer little to the workers with only basic skills whose tasks were taken over by the machines."

+ Managers automate anyway for two reasons: It’s “progress” and everybody’s doing it, and the costs imposed on workers?displaced by the new technologies are, to the firm, irrelevant.

+ “there is nothing automatic about new technologies bringing widespread prosperity. Whether they do or not is an economic, social, and political choice.”

How scientists discovered the universe is really freaking huge: Edwin Hubble’s name is everywhere in astronomy. Henrietta Leavitt’s should be too.?Vox

+ Linking the pulse of one type of star to its actual brightness was the key to measuring objects farther and farther out into space.

Space launches from Canada will be allowed soon, transport minister says: Rules coming within three years, but interim launches can be approved before that.?CBC

The cult of the 90s: Remember "That '70s Show"? Netflix has revived the hit TV series with "That '90s Show," a sequel that indulges in 1990s nostalgia. But what defined the era??DW

+ The portable audio cassette player was a revolution in consumer electronics, allowing people to take their music with them, any time, any place.

The blueprint that turned around the New York Giants and their quarterback: Daniel Jones’s future was in doubt when new coach Brian Daboll came in. Then Daboll turned around his career—the same way he had done with the Bills’ Josh Allen.?WSJ

Andy Murray won’t go gently?Jason Gay

From tennis to F1, smallscreen sports docu-series make big impact?AFP

+ The aim is clear from the start -- to rejuvenate the appetite of sponsors and broadcasters, and open up tennis to a new audience.

+ The number of sports-based series increased by 70% between 2019 and 2022, according to Glance, which specializes in observing international audiovisual markets.

+ "Sport is now one of the key themes of documentary series"?

In USMNT’s Berhalter/Reyna saga, everyone involved faces uncertain future?Sam Stejskal

+ "More than anything, this is an absurd, sad way for the U.S. men to close out one relatively successful World Cup cycle and enter into what should be an exciting moment for the entire American soccer community."

Enjoy the ride + plan accordingly.

-Marc?

Marc A. Ross | Chief Communications Strategist @ Caracal

Caracal produces ITK Daily.

Geopolitics is disrupting every business and industry.

Caracal is here to help.

Caracal is a geopolitical business communications firm specializing in global business issues at the intersection of globalization, disruption, and politics.

Caracal believes that to be a world-class geopolitical business communicator, you need global street smarts coupled with holistic, high-frequency, and high-low communications.?

More @ caracal.global