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Taylor Swift's Instagram profile is seen in this photo illustration taken in Warsaw, Poland on 11 September, 2024. The musician announced her endorsement of Kamala Harris for president shortly after the current vice president debated Donald Trump on live television that evening.
Hard Numbers: Voters express AI skepticism, Mastercard’s latest purchase, China’s AI deficit, the Taylor Swift effect, Intel’s European delays
400,000: More than 400,000 people visited vote.gov after Taylor Swift endorsed Kamala Harris last week and encouraged her fans to register to vote. Swift said she was spurred to make an official endorsement after Trump posted AI fakes on Truth Social showing her and her supporters endorsing him. “It brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter,” she said.
64: Most Americans are skeptical of AI-powered election information, according to a new survey by the Associated Press. Only 5% of respondents said they’re very confident or extremely confident in the answers that AI systems give for political questions, 30% said they’re somewhat confident, and 64% said they’re not very confident or not at all confident in the accuracy of these services.
2.65 billion: Mastercard agreed to buy the threat intelligence company Recorded Future last week from the private equity firm Insight Partners for $2.65 billion. Recorded Future has already partnered with Mastercard, using machine learning to identify when credit cards might be compromised, and Mastercard said the partnership has already doubled the rate at which it can identify compromised cards compared to the year prior.
6: It’s no secret that the US is leading China in the AI race, but by how much? Kai-Fu Lee, founder of the startup 01.AI and former head of Google China, said that China’s large language models are likely six to nine months behind those in the US. “It’s inevitable that China will [build] the best AI apps in the world,” he said at a conference last week. “But it’s not clear whether it will be built by big companies or small companies.” China’s ability to do this depends on its firms’ ability to do cutting-edge research and its access to powerful chips, which despite US restrictions appear to be seeping through the country’s borders.
33 billion: Intel announced Monday that it has delayed its $33 billion chip factory in the German city of Magdeburg amid broader cost-saving measures across the company. The US chipmaker said the project would be delayed by two years as it tries to deliver $10 billion of cost savings in 2025. It’s also postponing plans for a new factory in Poland. Intel had expected to employ about 5,000 people across the two plants.Electoral campaign posters are seen ahead of Nigeria's Presidential elections, in Yola, Nigeria, February 23, 2023.
What We're Watching: Nigerians vote, Biden's World Bank pick
Nigeria's presidential election head-scratcher
Nigerians go to the polls Saturday to vote in what is being billed as the most open presidential election in Africa's most populous country since democracy was restored in 1999. That's mostly thanks to buzz about Peter Obi, a third-party candidate who's leading most polls ahead of both Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the ruling party's pick, and opposition candidate Atiku Abubakar. With almost half the electorate undecided, Obi faces tough odds. First, to win outright, he must get the most votes nationwide and at least 25% in at least two-thirds of Nigeria's 36 states – but he doesn’t have strong party machinery to turn out voters. Second, if no candidate meets both conditions, the election goes to a runoff between the most-voted for candidate and — here's where it gets complicated — the one who placed second in the highest number of states. Also, keep an eye out for the rollout of machines to verify biometric voter ID to curb fraud. If the devices malfunction or are not widely deployed, expect many Nigerians to consider the election anything but free and fair.
Interested in the Nigerian election? Listen to Amaka Anku, head of Eurasia Group’s Africa practice, on this GZERO podcast in collaboration with The Center for Global Development podcast.
Biden picks ex-credit card exec to lead World Bank
President Joe Biden will nominate former Mastercard CEO Ajay Banga to replace the outgoing David Malpass as president of the World Bank. (The institution is traditionally led by a US citizen picked by the White House, while a European heads the International Monetary Fund, its sister org.) The selection of Banga is somewhat puzzling since he lacks a specific or public-sector background in climate change. The Biden administration wants the World Bank to focus on the issue, and Banga’s nomination comes just months after Malpass got in a political firestorm over his views on climate science. (He later denied being a climate denier on GZERO World.) Still, Banga has experience managing a multinational corporation and prioritized the climate at Mastercard. Perhaps Biden thinks he can run the World Bank more like, well, a bank, to mobilize private-sector climate finance — cash to help mainly developing nations do things like transition to more green energy.
Ukrainian forces fire howitzers at Russian positions near Makariv.
Watching the war in Ukraine
President Vladimir Putin said Sunday that Moscow will halt its military operation only "if Kyiv stops military operations and carries out well-known Russian demands." This is the same leader whose side twice agreed to and then violated a deal to evacuate civilians from the besieged city of Mariupol. On Monday, Russia said it would offer safe paths out of Kyiv, Mariupol, Kharkiv and Sumy, but some of the routes entail passage to Russia or Belarus, which Ukraine has called "immoral."
Ukraine says more than 11,000 Russian soldiers have been killed since the invasion began, more than 20 times Moscow’s only official death toll released to date. Roughly 1.5 million Ukrainians have already fled to neighboring European countries, raising the stakes for a common EU response to a refugee crisis that will surely worsen.
All eyes on Odessa. With Russian forces now occupying the southern city of Kherson, the Kremlin has its eye on its next big prize: Ukraine’s largest seaport of Odessa. On Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that Russia will soon start bombing Odessa, a bustling city of 1 million. With Russian soldiers struggling in the face of fierce Ukrainian resistance, taking Odessa would be a big win for Putin. Controlling it would mean curtailing Ukraine’s access to imports of food and other supplies — and if Russia took control of Mariupol too, it would gain much of Ukraine's seacoast. Occupying Odessa would also put the Russians within striking distance of Transnistria, a breakaway Moldovan republic that could be Putin’s next target after Ukraine.
Diplomatic moves. Over the weekend, various world leaders spoke with Putin to try to negotiate an end to hostilities. French President Emmanuel Macron wants the Russian leader to protect nuclear sites after Friday’s assault on Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in southeastern Ukraine. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged Putin to declare a cease-fire. Finally, Israeli PM Naftali Bennett surprised observers by showing up in Moscow for a meeting in the Kremlin, where he offered to mediate as a neutral partner with strong ties to both Russia and Ukraine. Meanwhile, delegations from both Russia and Ukraine are set to meet on Monday in Belarus for a third round of peace talks.