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In this photo illustration, the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) logo seen displayed on a smartphone with an Artificial intelligence (AI) chip and symbol in the background.
Can the CIA’s AI chatbot get inside the minds of world leaders?
The Central Intelligence Agency has reportedly spent the last two years developing an artificial intelligence chatbot.
The chatbot helps analysts get inside the heads of foreign presidents and prime ministers by conversing with them about various topics. And unlike many of its initiatives, the CIA actually wants the public to know about it. “It is a fantastic example of an app that we were able to rapidly deploy and get out to production in a cheaper, faster fashion,” CIA Chief Technology Officer Nand Mulchandani told the New York Times.
This program should continue under new CIA leadership, assuming Trump’s nominee John Ratcliffe is confirmed by the US Senate. Ratcliffe said that the agency has “struggled to keep pace” with technological innovation. Still, he said that Biden’s CIA director, William Burns, had attempted to expand the agency’s tech innovation experts and pledged to expand them. “The nation who wins the race in the emerging technologies of today will dominate the world of tomorrow,” he added.
The CIA gave no other details about its chatbot — what technology it’s based on, whether it worked with government contractors, and what steps it takes to keep its likely classified conversations secure. But as the agency changes hands, and the Trump administration cozies up with Silicon Valley, expect deeper integration between the national security and technology sectors in the years to come.
Supporters of newly sworn-in U.S. President Donald Trump march near the U.S. Capitol in Washington as his inauguration ceremonies get under way on Jan. 20, 2025.
World leaders react to Trump
Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine
“President Trump is always decisive, and the peace through strength policy he announced provides an opportunity to strengthen American leadership and achieve a long-term and just peace, which is the top priority.”
Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel
“On behalf of the people of Israel, I also want to thank you for your efforts in helping free Israeli hostages … I look forward to working with you to return the remaining hostages, to destroy Hamas’ military capabilities and end its political rule in Gaza, and to ensure that Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel.”
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada
“Canada and the US have the world’s most successful economic partnership. We have the chance to work together again — to create more jobs and prosperity for both our nations.”
Olaf Scholz, Chancellor of Germany
“The US is our closest ally and the aim of our policy is always a good transatlantic relationship.”
Mark Rutte, NATO Secretary General
“With President Trump back in office, we will turbo-charge defense spending & production …. Together we can achieve peace through strength – through @NATO.”
Jose Raul Mulino, President of Panama
“The canal is and will remain Panama’s.”
The UN will discuss AI rules at this week's General Assembly
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi, everybody. Ian Bremmer here. And a Quick Take to kick off your week. I'm in New York. Of course I am, because the United Nations General Assembly high-level meetings are kicking off. They will be all week. And of course, that means incredible amounts of traffic. We can handle that because we've got subway that works and a walkable city.
But what's going to happen this week? Interestingly, I think the most important topic of the week, and it's not because of personal bias, is artificial intelligence. And the reason for that is because, unlike every other topic where people generally know what outcomes they want, they just can't get there. They can't move fast enough. Climate change, for example, ending the Russian war in Ukraine, for example, multilateral finance to support lower developed countries. Moving on the Sustainable Development Goals for human development across the world, which has been slipping with the pandemic and with the Russia war. No, in AI we don't know what people want.
People are trying to understand the space and so bring in world leaders together to have high-level meetings on their beliefs around how to govern AI, what to govern specifically, what the institution should look like, what the priorities should be. Those meetings are the ones I personally think will be most interesting. And the Secretary-General, António Guterres, is very personally focused on it. He has been for several years thinking that post, you know, his efforts on climate change, this is the area that he wants to spend the most time on. The Russia war has made that very challenging in terms of a distraction for everybody at the meeting.
But nonetheless, we're now seeing a significant amount of focus of effort. And I suspect that there'll be a lot of news that comes out of those meetings. Beyond that, we've got President Zelensky in Ukraine, and he, of course, will be here in New York. He'll also be in Washington. He's looking for more support for the counteroffensive, more military aid, which Congress continues to be inclined to provide. Also looking to have better relations with the Global South that has largely sat on the sidelines of this war. And there with the Russians bombing grain and grain infrastructure, a lot of countries that were, you know, basically saying this doesn't apply to me increasingly see that it does. And so, yes, Ukraine's in Europe. Yes, Ukraine's a bunch of white people. Yes, it's true. The developed world doesn't pay as much attention to human rights concerns and invasions and coups that happen in sub-Saharan Africa. But the fact is that this war in Ukraine is causing a lot more hardship for the poorest, the hungriest people in the world.
And that's why what I talked to the Secretary-General a couple of days ago, he said his biggest near-term priority is ending the war. Why? Because until you do that, you're going to have underperformance among the poorest of the world's 8 billion. So that's a little bit of what's going to be discussed this week. I think the G-7 meeting on the sidelines is always interesting, especially because the G-7, the world's wealthy democracies, are more aligned on national security issues than they have been historically.
Not much to be seen from Russia. Foreign Minister Lavrov. His statements are well known. They don't move the needle. And the Chinese foreign minister not here. Why? Because he was in Malta meeting with Jake Sullivan to prepare for the coming Biden-Xi bilateral in November at APEC. Now is traveling to meet with the Russians so that they can prepare for the Xi-Putin meeting coming in a month when Putin travels to China. A lot of focus there, but that means that two of the countries that are most problematic for the United States from a geopolitical perspective, not showing up at a high level here in New York City.
That's it for me. It’s going to be fascinating, it’s going to be busy and I'll talk to you all real soon.
What's Vladimir Putin reading these days?
Forget Goodreads. The president of Russia and other world leaders give us their summer reading recommendations. #PUPPETREGIME
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Boris Johnson remains a dangerous force in UK politics
Carl Bildt, co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations and former prime minister of Sweden, shares his perspective on European politics, this week from the Oslo airport.
Is the political career of Boris Johnson over?
Seems to be the case but you can never be entirely certain, in his particular case. I think he has the ambition to come back. And clearly, he's going to remain a dangerous, in my opinion, a very disruptive force inside the Conservative Party. If they lose the election next year, which is not unlikely, mildly speaking, there might be a civil war and Boris Johnson might be one of the leaders of that particular civil war inside the Conservative Party. But remains to be seen.
What's the legacy, political and otherwise, of Silvio Berlusconi?
Well, to be on the positive side, he created a media empire. He did some reforms of the Italian political system after the scandals that sort of ripped apart the old political system in the past, but apart from that and in spite of the fact that he is now, sort of, given a state funeral and everyone is parading for him, that happens in situations like this, I think his legacy is mostly negative on the populist, who in three terms of government did very, very little to address the fundamental problems of the Italian economy, in the Italian state. A populist man who maneuvered, a man who had self-interest at the center of most things. But I think history will not judge him too kind.
World leaders with rhythm: South Korea's President Yoon chimes in
It was not, in fact, the day the music died.
The internet enjoyed a surprise moment when South Korea's President Yoon busted into song - specifically, American Pie - at a White House state dinner.
He's not the only world leader with rhythm. Watch our quick video compilation to remember some memorable tunes produced by heads of state.
For more entertainment from world leaders, revisit examples of world leaders dancing on camera.
New boss at the North Pole
Big changes at Santa’s workshop, and not everyone’s happy about it.
Watch more PUPPET REGIME!
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Hard truths on climate, education & poverty, from the UN’s Secretary-General
(Portions of this full interview have also been shown as part of the GZERO World with Ian Bremmer episode, "How A War-Distracted World Staves Off Irreversible Damage," available to view here.
Global political division, a culture of impunity and a vacuum of consequences ... Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine making climate change a “kind of second-order issue” (even as 50 million Pakistanis have been displaced by flooding, and more than 1,000 killed) - with "irreversible consequences" and "irreparable damage" coming "very soon" - "a world that is facing destruction everywhere" ... the threat that the world may not have enough food in 2023 due to fertilizer shortages ... there's a lot of bad news in the world, as UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres discusses with Ian Bremmer on GZERO World.
Still, there are paths to solutions - as with the grain deal that Guterres helped to (discreetly) broker between Russia and Ukraine - if only the world's leaders will work together.