📨 Weekly digest: 33 2024 | Can emerging economies recreate tech success infinitely?
Is technology leadership merely a byproduct of historical colonialism and exploitation? | AI this week in the news; use cases; for the techies
👋🏻 Hello friends, and welcome to the weekly digest, week 33 of 2024.
The debate over technology leadership is more than an academic exercise.
It's a battleground for shaping global narratives, economic power dynamics, and the future trajectory of human civilization.
While it's tempting to romanticize the underdog and decry technological power's dominance, such leadership is earned, not bestowed.
The technological prowess is the culmination of centuries of scientific inquiry, risk-taking, and investment in human capital.
To dismiss this as mere exploitation is to ignore the fundamental building blocks of innovation.
While challenges and inequalities undoubtedly exist, precisely the competitive pressures created by this system drive progress and ultimately benefit society as a whole.
The rise of alternative innovation hubs, the increasing importance of open-source collaboration, and the pressing need for ethical technology development are forcing a reconsideration of traditional power structures.
Perspectives:
Geopolitical realpolitik: Technology leadership is ultimately a tool of national power. Nations will continue to compete fiercely for technological dominance to secure economic prosperity, military superiority, and geopolitical influence.
Global commons and cooperation: Technology's interconnected nature demands international cooperation. A shared commitment to ethical principles, open standards, and equitable access to technology is essential for addressing global challenges.
Innovation ecosystems: Fostering diverse and inclusive innovation ecosystems is crucial for long-term success. This requires nurturing talent, supporting entrepreneurship, and investing in research and development on a global scale.
Ethical imperative: Technology leadership must be accompanied by a solid ethical framework. Addressing issues such as privacy, surveillance, and algorithmic bias is imperative to ensure that technology benefits all of humanity.
Ultimately, the future of technology leadership will be determined by how we balance competition and cooperation, power and responsibility, innovation and ethics.
🦾 AI elsewhere on the interweb
Nvidia is building its own foundation model for video generation. [LINK]
S&P Global is paying Accenture to train all 35k staff in ‘generative AI.’ Welcome to enterprise IT. [LINK]
Goldman CIO: AI tools increase developer coding productivity by maybe 20% (with coding being 50% of the time). [LINK]
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“Ultimately, the future of technology leadership will be determined by how we balance competition and cooperation, power and responsibility, innovation and ethics.”
Profound observation.
The requirement for balance is non trivial. I will add though that the imbalance in access to finance does mean that innovation is more highly concentrated.
This and the other existence of competing interests means that we are on a rocky road.
Best,
Gillian