Tag Archives: deep fakes

Top Risks 2024

I’d never heard of Eurasia Group before a good friend of mine, an investor, shared the infographic below with me yesterday. According to their website,

In 1998, Ian Bremmer founded Eurasia Group, the first firm devoted exclusively to helping investors and business decision-makers understand the impact of politics on the risks and opportunities in foreign markets. Ian’s idea—to bring political science to the investment community and to corporate decision-makers—launched an industry and positioned Eurasia Group to become the world leader in political risk analysis and consulting.

According to their ‘Top Risks 2024‘ report:

2024. Politically it’s the Voldemort of years. The annus horribilis. The year that must not be named.

Three wars will dominate world affairs: Russia vs. Ukraine, now in its third year; Israel vs. Hamas, now in its third month; and the United States vs. itself, ready to kick off at any moment.

Russia-Ukraine … is getting worse. Ukraine now stands to lose significant international interest and support. For the United States in particular, it’s become a distant second (and increasingly third or lower) policy priority. Despite hundreds of thousands of casualties, millions of displaced people, and a murderous hatred for the Russian regime shared by nearly every Ukrainian that will define the national identity of tens of millions for decades. Which is leading to more desperation on the part of the Ukrainian government, while Vladimir Putin’s Russia remains fully isolated from the West. The conflict is more likely to escalate, and Ukraine is on a path to being partitioned.

Israel-Hamas … is getting worse. There’s no obvious way to end the fighting, and whatever the military outcome, a dramatic increase in radicalization is guaranteed. Of Israeli Jews, feeling themselves globally isolated and even hated after facing the worst violence against them since the Holocaust. Of Palestinians, facing what they consider a genocide, with no opportunities for peace and no prospects of escape. Deep political divisions over the conflict run throughout the Middle East and across over one billion people in the broader Muslim world, not to mention in the United States and Europe.

And then there’s the biggest challenge in 2024 … the United States versus itself. Fully one-third of the global population will go to the polls this year, but an unprecedentedly dysfunctional US election will be by far the most consequential for the world’s security, stability, and economic outlook. The outcome will affect the fate of 8 billion people, and only 160 million Americans will have a say in it, with the winner to be decided by just tens of thousands of voters in a handful of swing states. The losing side—whether Democrats or Republicans—will consider the outcome illegitimate and be unprepared to accept it. The world’s most powerful country faces critical challenges to its core political institutions: free and fair elections, the peaceful transfer of power, and the checks and balances provided by the separation of powers. The political state of the union … is troubled indeed.

None of these three conflicts have adequate guardrails preventing them from getting worse. None have responsible leaders willing and able to fix, or at least clean up, the mess. Indeed, these leaders see their opponents (and their opponents’ supporters) as principal adversaries—“enemies of the people”—and are willing to use extralegal measures to ensure victory. Most problematically, none of the belligerents agree on what they’re fighting over.

Think about this, the Russia-Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas wars both take a back seat to the US election as the top risk of 2024. Both have no positive outcome in sight and they still don’t pose the same threat as a tight election result in the United States. I wish I could disagree, but I too see this as a genuine concern. What makes it worse is Risk #4 – Ungoverned AI, and specifically disinformation:

In a year when four billion people head to the polls, generative AI will be used by domestic and foreign actors—notably Russia—to influence electoral campaigns, stoke division, undermine trust in democracy, and sow political chaos on an unprecedented scale. Sharply divided Western societies, where voters increasingly access information from social media echo chambers, will be particularly vulnerable to manipulation. A crisis in global democracy is today more likely to be precipitated by AI-created and algorithm-driven disinformation than any other factor.

I want to explore the other risks as well, but by far my biggest concern for 2024 is the US election. My greatest fear is a close and contested election. The by-product of this would not just be tragic for the US, but for the entire world. I wish this was just hyperbole, but it’s not, and reading a report like this just magnifies concerns I already had. Buckle up, we are in for quite a ride in 2024.

You can get the full Top Risks 2024 white paper on their website, (or click the image below).

NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week

It’s sad that fake news is spread so easily that this even has to exist! The Associated Press has started this report: “NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week“, to debunk fake and even harmful, made-up news reports that have gone viral on social media.

Here is an example:

“CLAIM: The new vaccine for COVID-19 will be the first of its kind ever. It will be an “MRna vaccine” which will literally alter your DNA. It will wrap itself into your system. You will essentially become a genetically modified human being.

THE FACTS: Experts say mRNA vaccines do not alter your DNA. As researchers work to test vaccines to stop the spread of COVID-19, social media posts are sharing misinformation to sow doubt even before they become available to the public. The posts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram suggest that a new coronavirus mRNA vaccine will genetically modify humans…” — Beatrice Dupuy

This fake story feeds perfectly into the narrative of anti-vaxers and conspiracy theorists that believe Covid-19 is not serious and/or part of a plot to control the masses. It will be shared and re-shared, being passed off as facts and evidence on discussion boards, in Facebook groups and on Facebook timelines. It will be shared with hashtags on Twitter that will point this fake news to the right audience, who will believe it.

How did we get here? The sad thing is, the people that most need to see this Associated Press report are the people who would say that what’s written in this report is fake. They won’t do the research. They won’t check any sources. They won’t change their minds. They will spread the fake news and keep it alive long enough to fool more gullible people into believing what they want to believe, despite factual data and evidence to the contrary.

Worse yet, we are heading into the world of deep fakes, where video ‘evidence’ can be fabricated so well that it is indistinguishable from reality. Make no mistake, we need news websites like this to help us recognize viral fake news. We also need everyone to think twice before sharing controversial and click-bait like articles, unless we’ve done the work to ensure we aren’t perpetuating fake news.

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Find all AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck

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Follow @APFactCheck on Twitter: https://twitter.com/APFactCheck