AI with “Chinese Characteristics”

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Global Recap
July 13, 2023 • Read in: 6 minutes

Germany
Finally Waking Up to China’s Threat

🇩🇪 Germany, after years of being cozy with Beijing, has finally decided to shake things up by revealing its new China strategy today.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz took to Twitter to share his thoughts, tweeting that China is “a partner, competitor, and systemic rival.” And in response to a China that has “changed,” Germany is taking a more “offensive stance” to “avoid critical dependencies.”

Critics have long accused Germany of being too soft on China. The recent sale of a stake in a Hamburg port to a Chinese state-owned company sparked controversy and raised concerns about its government’s naivety regarding the CCP’s threat to national security.

Sweden
Denied: Turkey’s Extradition Request

🇸🇪🇹🇷 Sweden's Supreme Court has given Turkey the cold shoulder by rejecting its request to extradite two of its citizens who are refugees in Sweden. Why? The charges against them are not crimes in Sweden, and sending them back to Turkey could put them in harm's way. Turkey claims that the two citizens were involved in a movement that tried to overthrow its government in 2016, but Sweden isn't buying it.

But this could complicate the recent agreement between the two countries, in which Turkey promised to support Sweden's NATO membership bid in exchange for security cooperation, trade, investment, and help with EU aspirations.

China
AI with “Chinese Characteristics”

🤖 China’s AI game just changed. The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) has announced new rules for generative AI services, set to take effect on August 15th. These rules, the first of their kind, will require generative AI services available to the general public to obtain a license to operate.

One particular provision that stands out:

“… generative AI services shall (…) adhere to the core socialist values and must not produce content prohibited by laws and administrative regulations, such as inciting subversion of state power, overthrowing the socialist system, endangering national security and interests, damaging the national image, inciting separatism, undermining national unity and social stability, advocating terrorism and extremism, advocating ethnic hatred, ethnic discrimination, violence, obscenity, pornography, and false and harmful information;”

This news comes just hours after Elon Musk stated during a Twitter Spaces event that China is interested in a “cooperative international framework on AI.” Xi Jinping also reportedly entertained the idea of bringing US AI technology to China to Bill Gates.

Just as China is attempting to position itself as the 'global mediator' for all geopolitical issues, it appears that they are also striving to become the frontrunner in international AI regulation. Are we headed for a high-stakes game of global AI monopoly?

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Russia
Prigozhin’s Doomed Fate

Face masks depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, owner of private military company Wagner Group Yevgeny Prigozhin, centre, and Chechnya's regional leader Ramzan Kadyrov, left, are displayed among others for sale at a souvenir shop in St. Petersburg, Russia, Sunday, June 4, 2023. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)

💣 Prigozhin: Dead or Jailed. The man who dared to challenge the Russian president with a failed coup is probably dead or locked up, according to former US General Robert Abrams. Oh, and his supposed meeting with Putin after the mutiny? Most likely fake. See his reasoning.

Meanwhile, Biden said this after the end of the NATO summit:

"If I were he, I would be careful what I ate,"

Russia
Mysterious Death of Another Russian Diplomat

🇷🇺 Alexander Nikolayev, 72, a veteran Russian diplomat who served as the senior Russian diplomat in Crimea before its annexation by Putin has died 3 weeks after being brutally beaten near his country house in the Tver region. He was found “covered in blood, hematomas, and bruises.”

Is this part of the purge, or another coincidental death on a string of firings and disappearances?

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