China will not soften its stance on international loans unless the IMF and World Bank do too. New AI tools are poised to change human behaviour. How far should the regulators go to protect our children on line? A guide to the benefits and costs of nature-based solutions in pursuit of climate resilience. Just what is alcohol doing to our bodies?
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“You will never go to a search site again, you will never go to a productivity site, you’ll never go to Amazon again.” (Bill Gates quoted by Faustine Ngila)
ARTICLE OF THE WEEK
Bernard Condon, ‘In a lot of the world, the clock has hit midnight’: China is calling in the loans in dozens of countries from Pakistan to Kenya
(Fortune, 19 May 2023)
A telling example of geopolitics meeting finance and economics. At a time when a monumental debt crisis looms in many emerging markets, this article explains the role China plays in this. Several of the countries most indebted to it (like Pakistan, Kenya, Zambia, Mongolia, and Laos) are now in dire financial straits, having to pay an exorbitant amount of government revenues to reimburse foreign debt (sometimes more than a third). So far, China has not softened its stance on its loans, arguing that, if it were to forgive a portion of them, so should those multilateral lenders like the IMF and World Bank (which China views as US proxies) (metered paywall – reads in 10-15 min).
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Faustine Ngila, With AI, Bill Gates sees the end of Google Search and Amazon
(Quartz, 23 May 2023)
If AI continues to evolve at the current pace Bill Gates argues that the big incumbents like Google Search, Amazon, and Shopify will soon be outdated. As new AI tools begin to better understand human thinking patterns, needs, and feelings, this could change human behavior. Gates states: “You will never go to a search site again, you will never go to a productivity site, you’ll never go to Amazon again.”. Probably a bit self-serving (Microsoft hopes to lead the creation of this yet-to-be-designed AI, as proven by its $10bn investment in Open AI’s Chat GPT), but there is no doubt that an all-powerful AI agent will disrupt Big Tech business models as companies rush to embed ChatGPT-like features into their products to meet customers’ demands (metered paywall – reads in 5-6 min).
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Sara Morrison, How far should the government go to control what your kids see online?
(Vox, 23 May 2023)
With mounting evidence (1) that internet platforms can harm children, and (2) that tech companies either can’t or won’t do anything to protect their users; lawmakers are pondering how to regulate the internet for children and how far they should go. This article focuses on the US, where President Biden just issued an “executive action” that declares an “unprecedented youth mental health crisis” in the country, blamed partially on the internet. The action was accompanied by an advisory from the US Surgeon General about the risks that social media may pose to children (free access – reads in 6-8 min).
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Assessing the Benefits and Costs of Nature-Based Solutions for Climate Resilience: A Guideline for Project Developers
(World Bank, 12 May 2023)
This is for the many enthusiasts of natural capital in our community. A new World Bank report aims to guide the design, implementation, and use of studies to value the benefits and costs of Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) for climate resilience projects. It provides an overview of methods and approaches, along with a decision framework to guide the design of NBS cost and benefit assessment (from a few minutes for the exec summary to a few hours for the whole report).
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Joel Snape, The truth about booze: how alcohol really affects your body, from first flush of happiness to hangover hell
(The Guardian, 24 May 2023)
This is based on Professor David Nutt’s (the chair of Drug Science, an independent UK scientific body researching drugs and alcohol) book “Drink? The New Science of Alcohol and Your Health”. Over the past few years, the science has progressed enormously, with dozens of studies validating some old sayings, debunking others, and giving the medical establishment a much clearer understanding of how alcohol affects us and how much it is OK to drink. Read on to find out. A relatively long read (around 15 min), but grounded in science, with plenty of interesting insights (free access).
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