Washington Post (May 2)
“As generative artificial intelligence becomes eerily lifelike and gives rise to chatbots that can draft letters, write computer code or create songs, experts have warned about its ability to put people out of jobs. A Goldman Sachs report in late March said generative AI could significantly disrupt the global economy and subject 300 million jobs, particularly white-collar ones, to automation.”
Tags: AI, Automation, Chatbots, Computer code, Disrupt, Experts, Generative, Global economy, Goldman Sachs, Jobs, Lifelike, People, Songs, White collar
Washington Post (November 29)
“After so many months of insisting that the Communist Party and Mr. Xi know best — that rigid ‘zero covid’ is the only correct approach — changing course would imply they erred. China’s economy and its people’s health depend on whether this authoritarian system can respond to the voices of protest, ditch its own propaganda and show flexibility.”
Tags: Authoritarian system, Changing course, China, Communist party, Economy, Erred, Health, People, Propaganda, Protest, Rigid, Xi, Zero COVID
Reuters (November 28)
“Thousands of people are taking to the streets in several cities across the country in an unprecedented protest against the government’s stringent COVID restrictions.” This sort of unrest “does not happen very often, and the world is watching intently to see how Beijing handles the brewing crisis.”
Tags: Beijing, China, Cities, COVID restrictions, Government, People, Protest, Stringent, Thousands, Unprecedented, Unrest
BBC (June 1)
“It was supposed to last just nine days – a staggered lockdown to lessen the impact on Shanghai’s economy…. It lasted 65 days. It crippled the city and scarred its people. Restrictions are now being eased as quickly as they were imposed.” Like a “big bang,” most of the pervasive measures “are simply being lifted.”
Tags: 65 days, 9 days, Crippled, Eased, Economy, Impact, Imposed, Lockdown, People, Restrictions, Scarred, Shanghai, Staggered
NBC News (January 1)
“Millions of us feel a great sense of loss. Our divorce from the European Union will hinder the freedom of movement of people — and ideas.” While it is “a relief that a deal to govern U.K.-E.U. relations post-divorce was done at all,” the deal did not deliver new freedoms. Essentially it achieved “a loss of freedoms, quite the opposite of what we were promised.”
Endgadget (May 16)
“Japan plans to release 10-billion 14-digit numbers by 2021,” but the country “likely won’t be the only nation facing the problem of needing more numbers for more devices. Last year, the number of IoT devices in the world surpassed the number of mobile phones. Since 2008, there have been more connected devices on the planet than people, and by 2020 it’s predicted that there will be 50 billion connected devices globally.
Tags: Connected, Devices, IoT, Japan, Mobile phones, People, Phone numbers
Bloomberg (April 24)
“China has mismanaged an epidemic of African swine fever that’s on course to kill 130 million pigs—or roughly one-third of China’s herd, the biggest in the world.” The response has taken the pattern of past mismanaged crisis and shows that China remains “systemically unprepared…to report and manage the inevitable next epidemic that kills people.”
Tags: African swine fever, China, Crisis, Epidemic, Inevitable, People, Pigs, Unprepared
New York Times (December 6)
“If Emmanuel Macron survives this crisis, something good may come out of it. He, along with French and European elites, could draw the lesson from the revolt of the Yellow Vests and find a way to govern with the people, not against them. That is, after all, what democracy is about.”
Tags: Crisis, Democracy, Elites, Europe, France, Govern, Macron, People, Revolt, Survives, Yellow Vests
Financial Times (December 20)
“Fear and rage must not be used as an excuse to destroy America’s core institutions.” Britain and other western democracies are also at risk of falling into the hands of despots. “The core institutions of democracy do not protect themselves. They are protected by people who understand and cherish the values they embody. Politics must respond to the fear and rage that brought Mr Trump to power. But it must not surrender to them. They must not be an excuse to destroy the republic.”
Tags: Core institutions, Democracies, Despots, Fear, People, Politics, Rage, Trump, UK, Values
LA Times (May 7, 2013)
“The deaths of more than 600 garment workers in Bangladesh’s Rana Plaza factory collapse April 24 is a tragedy that highlights widespread problems in the global apparel industry. But will it be the spark that finally leads to much-needed global reforms?” Not until we quit looking for smoking guns and, instead, look in the mirror. Only then, will we see “the real culprits: the global apparel industry and ourselves for being complicit in supporting or ignoring a system of trade and offshoring largely designed to bypass regulatory policy of every stripe, while putting maximum profit before people.”
Tags: Apparel industry, Bangladesh, Garment workers, Offshoring, People, Profit, Reforms