How viable is a market for ‘conservation’? Can Europe create an innovation economy? Does AI hold the key to productivity growth? Should AI weapons be allowed to decide to kill? We probably have no choice. Seven ways to love better.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
ARTICLE OF THE WEEK
Natasha White, King Charles and Big Banks Jump Into New Market to Save Nature
(Bloomberg, 17 October 2024)
Begins with the King of England who just signed over part of one of his Estates to a private company that will restore its wetlands, meadows and ancient forest over the next 30 years. It will then estimate the improvement to the biodiversity and health of the land, before packaging that into a tradable biodiversity credit. A new English law that requires homebuilders and developers to compensate for the ecological harms of construction makes this possible (since purchasing these “biodiversity net gain” credits is one way to comply with the law). As financiers and diplomats gather for the UN’s biodiversity summit in Cali next week, this article delves into the intricacies of the nascent markets for conservation. Spoiler alert: it’s hard. So far, only 28 countries and the EU have submitted their plans to meet the 2022 Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity agreement (gifted, 7-9 min).
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Philippe Aghion, Mathias Dewatripont and Jean Tirole, Can Europe Create an Innovation Economy?
(Project Syndicate, 7 October 2024)
After the 30 “glorious” years of economic growth following WWII, European policymakers failed to adopt the institutions and policies to promote disruptive innovation (not enough R&D, fragmented and overconcentrated in the mid-tech range, absence of a true-market-capital union). By contrast, “the US model delegates scientific decision-making to top scientists, does not pretend to know which technologies will work, and offers no incumbency advantage.” Now, Europe urgently needs to adopt a new economic doctrine and reform agenda (as delineated in the Draghi report it shows the way out of the current economic death spiral). Otherwise, Europe will continue to fall behind the US and others (metered paywall that may require prior registration, reads in 4-6 min).
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Carl-Benedikt Frey, Era Dabla-Norris, Rob Hornby, Laura d’Andrea-Tyson, Will AI make it easier to get the productivity growth we want?
(WEF, 15 October 2024)
Four prominent experts ponder whether AI can reverse the decline in global productivity growth by making three general observations. (1) Currently, many AI tools generate a one-time gain: they automate tasks already performed, but do not create new tasks and products. (2) AI could boost scientific discovery, and in turn generate the technological progress that underpins future productivity, but this is not a given (mainly because start-ups, the real drivers of innovation, face increasing barriers to entry). (3) In the next ten years, productivity growth will largely depend on how quickly AI is adopted (free access, 5-6 min).
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Margaux MacCall, Silicon Valley is debating if AI weapons should be allowed to decide to kill
(TechCrunch, 12 October 2024)
Fully autonomous weapons would revolutionize wars and pose considerable moral and ethical dilemmas. This said, their development seems inevitable. The US government has an ambiguous attitude: it currently doesn’t purchase fully autonomous weapons, but its biggest fear is that China or Russia will eventually roll out fully autonomous weapons first, forcing its hand to do the same. More generally, everybody’s recurrent concern is about “bad people using bad AI” (metered paywall, 4-5 min).
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Daniel Jones, Seven Ways to Love Better
(The New York Times, 11 October 2024)
The editor of the NYT “Modern Love” column for 20 years shares the seven lessons that have helped him the most. (1) “Love is more like a basketball than a vase” – how we negotiate conflict in our relationship is the single most important indicator of our compatibility; (2) “Be present, especially with your loved ones”; (3) “Write well, love well”; (4) “Always lead with empathy” – simple to state, hard to practice; (5) “Appreciate the beauty of impermanence” – nothing that’s limitless can be precious; (6) Relationships don’t have to last to be good (gifted article, 6-8 min).
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