Trending Now
We have updated our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use for Eurasia Group and its affiliates, including GZERO Media, to clarify the types of data we collect, how we collect it, how we use data and with whom we share data. By using our website you consent to our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy, including the transfer of your personal data to the United States from your country of residence, and our use of cookies described in our Cookie Policy.
{{ subpage.title }}
Use AI and data to predict and prevent crises - Melinda Bohannon
Data-driven humanitarian efforts are revolutionizing crisis response, says Melinda Bohannon, a prominent expert in international development. She highlights the significance of using data for better targeting and foreseeing global issues, , speaking in a Global Stage livestream event at UN headquarters in New York on September 22, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
Bohannon notes, "In conflict and crises, we've used AI-driven models to track media and conflict events and human rights abuses and understand where conflicts are likely to break out. So we have that element of predictability in our policy and our program responses," underscoring the power of data to predict and preempt crises, enhancing humanitarian efforts significantly.
The discussion was moderated by Nicholas Thompson of The Atlantic and was held by GZERO Media in collaboration with the United Nations, the Complex Risk Analytics Fund, and the Early Warnings for All initiative.
Watch the full Global Stage conversation: Can data and AI save lives and make the world safer?
- Use new data to fight climate change & other challenges: UN tech envoy ›
- How AI can be used in public policy: Anne Witkowsky ›
- Scared of rogue AI? Keep humans in the loop, says Microsoft's Natasha Crampton ›
- AI plus existing technology: A recipe for tackling global crisis ›
- Can data and AI save lives and make the world safer? ›
Countdown to the (possibly contested) US election
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take:
Normalcy is incrementally coming to the United States, if not yet to a lot of developing markets, but certainly to Europe, certainly to China. And I haven't spent a lot of time talking about the US election yet, certainly nothing close to the media coverage. I thought I would today because we've got 99 days until November 3rd. You say 100 days yesterday, sounds like a bigger deal, but that's only because we have a base 10 numeric system. If we had a base three numeric system, 99 days out would be pretty meaningful, right? But no, I thought let's finally, right, we've got these massive, incredibly expensive, billions of dollars spent, a year and a half of the entire process, I mean, by far a greater subversion of democracy, the way the US elections are held than any other advanced industrial democracy in the world. We all know it. Democrats, Republicans, people sick of the party system. We all recognize nothing can be done about it. It's fantastic for special interests that spend an immense amount of money trying to ensure that candidates do their bidding. But now that we are only 99 days out, political polls really do start to matter. We know who the candidates are on both sides. We don't yet have the V.P. on the Biden side. But still, I mean, we're pretty close. 100 days out, 99 days out, you feel like you can start paying attention.
So, what do I think? Well, first, you know, on the Trump side, it is very obvious that he is well behind in the polls. Let's keep in mind he was generally well behind in the polls in 2016. But this time around, not only do you have a candidate running against him that is not nearly as controversial or as toxic to a part of the population as Hillary Clinton was, but also just the general backdrop, conditions for an incumbent are really challenging. The economic contraction going on longer than a lot of the bankers and the economists have expected. You're talking about an 8% contraction likely or more of the US economy this year. Certainly, double digit unemployment, meaningful double-digit unemployment at the time that we have the election. Challenges in continuing to get stimulus in place, though, I do think this latest round four of a trillion plus is going to happen and Congress will go nowhere, they won't leave session until they get something done.
And also on the coronavirus situation, you still give 30% of people approving the way Trump is responding to coronavirus, the numbers of deaths, the numbers of hospitalizations, the view that it's been mishandled. Yes, at the federal as well as at the state and at the local level. But ultimately, the buck stops with the president. Whoever the president is, if those things go badly, it tends to hurt them. And then on top of that, you have all of the the protests, the social discontent, Black Lives Matter, the anti-government demonstrations happening in Portland and other places, and the response from federal authorities increasingly, all of that bodes badly for Trump. It's why he is under water, not just in national polls, which don't matter very much, but also in swing state polls, which really do.
So, if you look at those polls, like in 2016, you expect Trump is going to lose and lose pretty big. And I will say that almost all of my Democrat friends have been telling me they're more than willing to bet not only that Biden will win, but most of them are willing to bet that Biden is going to win by a landslide. I am not there. And I'm not there, not just because it's still early, because increasingly 99 days, you can't say it's that early, these polls, you know, do start to hold to a greater degree. So, if you're betting person, you would be betting in favor of Biden against Trump right now. But the big, big difference between 2016 and 2020 is that this coronavirus and the level of crisis, the extraordinary level of crisis domestically in the US, means that the ability to hold an election is itself more challenged. And President Trump, who continues to post regularly that it's rigged and that there's all sorts of problems with the primaries and problems with mail-in ballots and the rest, in 2016 he wasn't president, in 2020 he is, which means his ability to use, to leverage the power of the presidency, to change the way the election is conducted, and to also make lots of people feel that the election has been rigged and mishandled is vastly greater than it would have been in 2016.
We already see that with federal authorities and the Department of Homeland Security going in in Portland against the interests and desire of local elected political officials, very different than what we've seen with coronavirus. Coronavirus. You know, they mishandle it. Trump blames them for mishandling it, but says, not my responsibility. I'm not doing anything. You mishandle local demonstrations and there's a little bit of violence. Trump says, "I'm going in. This is horrible. And I'm going to send those authorities to other cities, too." Why? Because if there's greater violence and the protests become riots and they're seen as out of control, Trump believes that he has a better shot of getting those swing state voters that want law and order wants security, even if they don't like Trump all that much right now, and they're more willing to turn out. But also a greater chance for the president to be able to claim that the system, that the elections need to be held in a more secure fashion, giving the electoral authorities more control over those elections, more ability to say that it's rigged credibly, if the election goes against President Trump. All of those things are happening.
So, yeah, I expect we're going to see more violence because I think that plays into the desire of the incumbent to make people question how this election is actually going to be run. Now, you know, will anyone go along with him? I mean, I think it's virtually guaranteed that if Trump loses, he will say it's rigged. But will anyone go along with him? And I think it's important to recognize two things, the first is that his popularity among Republicans remains very high. There aren't as many people that identify as Republicans as used to. By the way, there aren't as many people identify as Democrats either. Both party affiliations have been going down, as people get more disgusted with the system, though, it's decreased a bit more on the right side of the spectrum, demographic changes in the US also matter in that regard, but the fact that you have a number of Republicans that I mean, you know, well over 85%, well over 90% in many polls, saying that they support Trump even now, no matter what, is very powerful. And it means that Republicans in Congress and Republicans in state legislatures are unwilling to go against the president. You think about the impeachment process, which passed easily in the House but was opposed easily in the Senate because only one Republican senator voted against him, Mitt Romney. Why was that? When you're talking about President Trump interfering politically in the election, trying to get the Ukrainian government to open an investigation against Trump's rival, Joe Biden, he wasn't the nominee the time but there was a decent chance he was going to be, and the answer is, because no matter what Trump does, as long as he's president, the Republicans are supporting him. So, the interesting question will be, if the election occurs and the Democrats say they won and the count shows that the Democrats won, that Biden won, but Trump says, "no, it's rigged," do the Republicans stick with him? And the answer, I think is, it depends on how close it is. I think if it's close, the Republicans are going to stick with him just as they did during impeachment. Even if it's pretty clear from an objective view that the Democrats probably won, I think they would be willing to say, no, it's rigged and make it partisan, make it polarized.
And so you've got a number of swing states where you have Republican legislatures and Democratic governors, and if it's close, you could easily imagine Trump says, "I won, I won those states." He's tweeting it, "I won." Irrespective of what the mainstream media is saying, right? And then you can imagine the legislature's reporting to Congress saying, "that's right, Trump won." While the governors report, "no, actually, Biden won." Now, that has to be decided by Congress. The judiciary, the Supreme Court has ruled on many other sorts of cases that internal voting of Congress is decided by Congress and the Supreme Court judiciary has no ability to weigh in on that. Well, this is the same thing. This would be a question of how Congress decides to handle it. And in the House. It's run by the Democrats. So, in that case, the Democrats would say Biden won. But in the Senate, the Republicans would say actually Trump won.
Well, then what happens? Historically in the United States, that's only happened once. It happened in 1876. There is no legal outcome. You have to create a political outcome. You need a deal. You would need both sides to come together and figure out an agreement on, someone becomes president, in return, there's a give to the other party. Back in 1876, the Republicans got the presidency but the Democrats got a lot of patronage, key slots, to allow them to hand out pork and also had the removal of US troops from the south. Basically ending the reconstruction. The funny thing is, I mean, depending on where federal troops are at that time across the United States, that may well be part of an agreement. I mean, we're not we're not faced in the aftermath of the civil war in the United States, but we are facing something that from a political, from an electoral perspective, only happened once in the history of the US. And I think people are underestimating just how unprecedented the next 99 days are going to be politically in our lifetimes in the United States.
Now, I think that is true if it's close. If it's not close, Trump will still say it's rigged but at that point, the difference is the Republicans no longer need to be with him because he's no longer going to be president. And whether or not Trump is not president still has a lot of influence is an interesting question that we should explore. Otherwise massive number of followers, unlikely Democrats would try to proceed. And actually, you know, indict him on anything in that environment. I think they want to move on and govern. And there are a lot of Trump-light types that are, you know, pretty significant lights in the Republican Party, senator Tom Cotton, you know, certainly Mike Pompeo, and the impact he'll have on the media and social media. So, I'm not someone also that believes that Trump has just gone from the political spectrum. I think Trumpism is going to be here for a while because the anti-establishment sentiment is very significant across the political spectrum in the United States right now. And I don't think that goes from Republican Party if Trump loses. But in any case, a big win by Biden, a sweeping win would mean that you wouldn't have the claims of a rigged election from Trump metastasizing across the Republican Party and therefore that election would get resolved pretty quickly
COVID vaccine development could be damaged by politics, says former US Surgeon General
"When we already have enough challenges with people understanding the science behind vaccines, we cannot afford to allow the development and approval of a vaccine to be further politicized," Dr. Vivek Murthy told Ian Bremmer on GZERO World. The former US Surgeon General expressed concerns that politics could hurt the process of development and distribution while shaking public confidence. He also discusses the current state of development for a COVID-19 vaccine, and possible scenarios for its efficacy once available.
Lessons not learned: America’s pandemic response with Vivek Murthy
Former US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy joins Ian Bremmer to discuss how the Sun Belt states became America's epicenter in the COVID-19 outbreak, the latest treatments and therapies for the most severely ill, and another pandemic plaguing America in this time of social distancing and isolation—loneliness.
US vs China: everything's getting worse
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take:
Today, you got to talk about US-China because so much is going on.
The latest headlines, you've got the fire department showing up at the Chinese consulate in Houston because they're burning all of their papers in containers outside. This is following the United States government telling them they have a few days to close their consulate, claiming that Chinese officials have been involved in espionage out of that consulate facility. The Chinese response is that this is unacceptable, a sudden escalation from the US side. They're almost certainly going to close an American consulate in return. Tit for tat. It sounds like the consulate in Wuhan. There are five US consulates in China. There is also Hong Kong, but it's very hard to believe that they'll cut out Hong Kong. That would be a much more significant escalation.
And, you know, most of the direct escalation on things like tariffs, on things like diplomatic hits and the rest, those are coming from the United States. But pretty much everything is getting worse in the US-China relationship. No matter what you look at, the Uighurs, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South China Sea, technology, Huawei, economic trade, investment, intellectual property, openness to media and journalists, student visas, blame for the coronavirus, and of course, the borders between the two countries are closed. Now, some of that is because the Trump administration has taken a tougher line on preexisting and continuing Chinese behavior that no one's much happy about. I mean, the behavior, not the Chinese, the American response. And some of it is because the Chinese have themselves taken escalatory policy steps. Like ramping up suppression with these million plus Uighurs in forced reeducation camps in the country. Or the unilateral decision to implement a new national security law in Hong Kong, ending Hong Kong government autonomy as had been committed to and provided by the Chinese government.
Now, the interesting thing is that the response to China is broadly supported. When I say broadly supported, I mean, first of all, that the massive backlash against China is not just about Trump. I mean, I've been talking to most of Biden's senior advisers on the foreign policy, national security side, and the economic side, and they don't like Trump, obviously, and they don't like his mode of diplomacy, they don't think he executes well, but when you ask them about the actual content of policies on all of the issues I just raised, they don't really have significant disagreements. So, that is between Biden and Trump. And their foreign policy teams, they're pretty aligned. Between Democrats and Republicans in Congress, on China, on almost all of these issues, they're quite aligned. Between the American corporate special interests with a lot of influence, of course, over the US regulatory and foreign policies and the government, they were much less aligned five, 10 years ago, not wanting to say bad things about China because they were trying to get more business themselves, many of those companies now feel like their own businesses in China are less sustainable. They are much more willing publicly to come out against China and ask for government help. That's particularly true with the tech firms. And as you know, the tech firms in the US are economically dominant. They've got a lot more influence. They're critical to national security. And so, that really matters.
And then you've got other countries. I mean, if this is just a US-China fight then you would expect that other countries, many of whom are not happy with President Trump at all, would be trying to stay on the fence. That's not happening. You know, I mean, the response to the Hong Kong decision led to a very sharp reaction from the United Kingdom. In fact, sharper than the American reaction. The coronavirus coverup in China led to stronger calls for an independent investigation from Australia than it did from the United States. And that wasn't coordinated. The Indian government has decided to ban Tik-Tok and 58 other Chinese apps. That had nothing to do with the US. That was a response to the Chinese sending troops to contested territory in the Himalayas and responsible for killing some 20 plus Indian soldiers in that border region.
So, I mean, the fact that so many countries around the world, most of which are American allies but not all, are engaged in backlash against Chinese policies, implies that Xi Jinping is doing a lot that's wrong at this point, that he, you know, either his policies or bad or he's implementing ineffectively. And I would argue that both of these cases have been problematic for him. Now, there's a question, can we fix it? And certainly, that's going to be challenging because it's President Xi that's largely been moving in this direction. I mean, if you ask where the broader changes are in the world, are they in the US foreign policy in reality or China? Most of the changes have been from China, the consolidation of power under a single leader, the anti-corruption campaign, which was partially about anti-corruption, partially about stronger authoritarian rule, the unwillingness to engage in in continued economic and political reform inside China, the buildup of Belt and Road, the decision that they want to be global leaders in artificial intelligence by 2030, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
Now, look, the fact that China, it's just the reality China's gotten bigger and they're not aligning with American or Western values. No one should be surprised that there is backlash against that. And that is not all China's fault, at all. But a lot of the assertive, heavy handed use of Chinese political, economic, and in some cases military and technological influence over countries that need them a lot, that has certainly led to a lot of backlash. That has nothing to do with the Chinese versus the American system. It has to do with a country throwing its weight around. The United States has been on the wrong side of that on many occasions historically.
Secondly, not only is Xi Jinping moving in this direction, but the United States is not prepared to compromise. I mean, again, the fact that this is broadly bipartisan, that the US, you know, is looking for scapegoats and not just President Trump, but lot of people are saying, "why are things not going the way we'd like them to go?" A lot of people are blaming China for that. Coronavirus makes it worse, but it's not just about that.
And then third, even if there was a willingness to engage in a climbdown between the two countries and again, both sides are not moving in that direction right now, you'd have to be able to convince them that the US was sincere and was really prepared to engage with the Chinese, really prepared to compromise. And it's hard to see that given how badly the trust is broken on both sides. I mean, for example, when the Chinese, I mean the big moment when China turned to the West was when they joined the World Trade Organization under President Clinton. And that was basically the Chinese government saying, OK, if we accept Western based trade rules, we're going to do a lot better ourselves. And that meant they also believed that they would be truly allowed to join the WTO. And if they did align with Western trade values, they would be able to benefit. And indeed, it did work out that way. They did open their markets to a much greater degree. And China's growth, self-evident over the course of the decades, just rocket ship since they joined that Western led organization. Now, could that happen for data, for technology, if the Chinese government was willing to adapt to a Western rules set in terms of the treatment of data and surveillance and allow the private sector companies to actually run with rule of law and not be controlled by the government? Would it be credible that there would be an organization, a regime that the Chinese could join and align with? And would they actually see benefits? Would they be allowed to? I mean, number one that doesn't exist in the West right now, such an organization. Number two, President Xi is moving in the opposite direction. I would argue you would need a change of leadership. And number three, the United States is driving a lot of this unilaterally through its dominant tech firms. So, I think for that to happen, two things would have to occur, one is you'd have to see much more alignment on multilateral values and standards between the Americans and the Europeans. That's not happening right now. But it could happen, could happen.
Certainly Biden, much more pro-Europe if he were to win in November elections. And the Europeans were able to continue in a stronger pro-European track with Merkel, Macron, but also with strong technocrats running Brussels, as we've seen now on climate, on tech. That's possible. But the other piece of this is Xi Jinping would probably need to go. And that's interesting, right? Because if he's seen as failing over the next year, you know, he's was supposed to only get two terms. He forced through the end of term limits, just like Putin just did in Russia. And could potentially be president for life, but that doesn't mean it's a slam dunk. And if there's a belief among Chinese elites that Xi Jinping is actually driving the country in the wrong direction and you got rid of him, you actually moved him aside for a more technocratic, a more pragmatic, a less overtly nationalist Chinese leader, you know, you could see a pathway for a WTO type moment between the Chinese and the West on technology and data. That would be a really big thing. But we are, none of those issues heading in that direction right now. We're heading in the opposite.
In the interim, since we're not heading in that direction, what could we do? Well, we need to try to guard against mistakes and overreach, and we still do need to work together. Let's keep in mind that, you know, we do a lot of trade with China. We buy a lot of goods from China. We don't want that to stop anytime soon because it will cost Americans and others dearly in our pocketbooks at a time when massive unemployment and the economy is contracting. We, our universities get lots of money from Chinese international students that pay full freight. We don't want to kick them out. And it's one thing, them coming at M.I.T. and studying artificial intelligence, we probably don't want them to do that as long as tech is on this path. But we probably do want them coming to second and third tier universities, paid for by wealthy parents, so these universities can keep running and don't have to fall apart, right? That's a useful thing and benefits the United States.
And certainly, in the context of a pandemic, in the context of climate change, you know, do you want the world's largest emitter of carbon to be working cooperatively with the United States and Europe? Of course you do. The alternative is much worse for everyone. Do you want the country that has the greatest amount of data on coronavirus and is driving ahead in some of the vaccine and treatment developments and is also producing the lion's share of the world's personal protective equipment for frontline health care workers, do you want them working on supply chain with the West? Of course you do. So, if those things break, we're all going to get hurt. So, we have to recognize this is not like a cold war with the Soviets where we wanted them to lose. And there really was very little interdependence between the United States and the Soviets, between the West and the East Bloc. In the case of the US and China, Europe and China, Japan and China, there's actually a lot of integration. These are the world's two largest economies and breaking that would be a real problem for all of us.
Ending the filibuster: Senator Chris Coons' changed views & a Biden administration
In a new interview with Ian Bremmer for GZERO World, Delaware Senator Chris Coons, once an ardent defender of the filibuster, explains why he's had a change of heart on the procedural policy. The filibuster prevents a simple majority from passing legislation in the Senate, and has been a tool that Coons says allowed Sen. Mitch McConnell, then Minority Leader, to "use the power of the minority to thwart the Obama Administration's agenda." Coons says, should VP Biden win the 2020 election, "I'm not willing to sit by for four years and watch an entire administration lose the opportunity to make real change."
Twitter hack mystery; does two-factor authentication make you safe?
Nicholas Thompson, editor-in-chief of WIRED, helps us make sense of today's stories in technology:
Whoa Twitter! What happened this week?
Well, on Wednesday, a whole bunch of prominent Twitter accounts, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Apple, started tweeting out a Bitcoin scam. The same one. It said, "send money to this address and we'll send you back twice as much." Clearly a fraud. But what was interesting about it is that it wasn't like one account that had been compromised. A whole bunch of accounts have been compromised. Meaning most likely someone got access to a control panel at Twitter. The big mystery is how they got access to it? And why, if they had so much power, all they did was run a stupid Bitcoin scam?
How can we keep ourselves safe? Is two-factor authentication the only option?
Two-factor authentication, you need two things to get into your account, your cell phone and your password, is absolutely essential. With this hack, though, that wouldn't have helped you. The only thing you could possibly have done is have deleted your Twitter account. Which is a reminder, remove all the accounts you don't use, all the accounts you don't want, move all the applications with access to the accounts that you want. Basically, constantly, constantly clean out your barn.
What to expect for second-quarter earnings season; H2 2020 outlook
Betty Liu, Executive Vice Chairman for NYSE Group, provides her perspective:
What are analysts expecting, going to the second quarter earnings season?
So, this earnings season has just started this past week, you saw banks kick off their reports. And as you can well imagine, analyst estimates are pretty much all over the place. And part of that is because a good number of companies did not provide guidance. Now, according to some estimates, some analysts estimates, we could see an earnings season decline or earnings decline as much as 44% this time around. That would be one of the biggest declines since 2008, the prior crisis.
What is the outlook for the second half of 2020?
Well, that's the million-dollar question. What is going to happen the rest of the year? So, nobody knows, right? But there's a few factors that we're going to be watching to see how companies perform. One is going to be watching the number of coronavirus cases across the country. And the second, of course, is watching the results of the November presidential elections.