Bloomberg (February 2)
“The US president’s stance toward the greenback may help Xi Jinping realize his dream of making the yuan a global reserve currency.” At the top of President Xi’s wish “list is a ‘powerful currency’ with global-reserve status that punches its weight in international trade and foreign-exchange markets.” China now looks “well positioned to benefit from any long-term shift away from the dollar.” Despite Trump’s America First bluster, his “disruptive policies may be playing into the hands of rivals like China, who are only too eager to exploit US weakness wherever they see an opening.”
Tags: America first, Disruptive policies, Dollar, Exploit, Forex, Global reserve currency, Greenback, International trade, Powerful, President, U.S., Xi, Yuan
Time (February 19)
“Today’s advanced AI models like OpenAI’s o1-preview are less scrupulous. When sensing defeat in a match against a skilled chess bot, they don’t always concede, instead sometimes opting to cheat by hacking their opponent so that the bot automatically forfeits the game.” Earlier versions required an actual prompt to resort to such tactics, but both the “o1-preview and DeepSeek R1 pursued the exploit on their own, indicating that AI systems may develop deceptive or manipulative strategies without explicit instruction.”
Tags: Advanced, AI models, Cheat, Chess bot, Concede, Deceptive, DeepSeek R1, Defeat, Exploit, Forfeits, Game, Hacking, Manipulative strategies, o1-preview, OpenAI, Opponent, Prompt, Scrupulous, Tactics
Guardian (September 21)
“Europe’s apparent rightwards drift is not a fait accompli. But there is a risk that, as mainstream parties accommodate more and more of the radical right’s agenda, it becomes one. Years of austerity, followed by the pandemic and the Ukraine-related cost of living crisis, have led to chronic economic insecurity for less well-off Europeans. That has created an opening for ugly political movements and populist leaders to exploit.”
Tags: Austerity, Cost of living, Crisis, Economic insecurity, Europe, Exploit, Mainstream, Pandemic, Populist, Radical right, Rightwards, Risk, Ugly, Ukraine
