This week, our Trend Monitoring Radar has highlighted several issues, including US-China relations and the status of Ukraine's application to NATO. In our special section, now that we've fully automated the process of the Trend Monitoring Radar (as you can see), we've decided to conduct a literature review on the assessment of various Generative AIs in the industry.
Section I: Weekly PESTLE Report and Trend Monitoring Radar
Subject: Metageopolitical Weekly Scan: June 14, 2023
Dear C-suite Director,
We present you with a comprehensive geopolitical analysis focusing on the key developments in political, economic, sociocultural, technological, legal, and environmental domains that are shaping global dynamics and power structures.
Political:
US-China relations: Rising tensions over China's aggressive actions in the Indo-Pacific are reminiscent of a brewing Cold War, spotlighting hard power dynamics. Corporations with supply chains in China or investments in Chinese markets should anticipate and prepare for potential disruptions. The AUKUS alliance's complexities underscore the multipolar motivations of state actors and reaffirm the importance of Rimland Theory in controlling coastal regions.
Ukraine's alliance with NATO: This move raises questions about its motives and the role of significant non-state actors in influencing global power dynamics, which could lead to an unpredictable political climate that might impact business operations in the region.
Economic:
China's economic transformation: The potentially far-reaching impacts of China's economic rise on the global balance of power are critical for businesses with global operations or investment interests. The dynamics between hard power and economic power are becoming increasingly intertwined.
US-China trade relations: The existing tensions are a major factor affecting the global economy. Understanding the interplay between economic power and state actors' motivations is vital for businesses involved in international trade.
Sociocultural:
Generative AI: This technology may perpetuate stereotypes, highlighting concerns about societal perceptions and shared ideas formation. The ethical and societal implications of these technologies should be considered in business decisions involving AI.
Astronaut brain recovery research: This research reveals the physiological effects of space travel, contributing to our collective understanding of human capabilities and potentially opening new opportunities for industries related to health and space travel.
Technological:
AI's impact on work: The impact of AI on current job roles and industries is significant. As AI technology advances, companies should consider the potential implications for the global workforce and competitiveness, including new opportunities for innovation and potential threats to existing business models.
Space-based solar power: This emerging technology represents both an exciting innovation and a potential tool for international competition or collaboration, which may open new markets or influence existing ones.
Legal:
Fringe legal theories: The recent debate on the Second Amendment reflects ideological, legal, and political factors' complex interplay. Such debates can have far-reaching implications for businesses, particularly those involving regulatory and compliance issues.
Apple's privacy feature: Legal challenges highlight the evolving and delicate balance between user protection, government oversight, and corporate interests, impacting businesses operating in the digital realm.
Environmental:
Climate concerns: Increasing sea level rise and above-average fires underscore environmental factors' importance in geopolitical realities. Companies involved in industries vulnerable to climate change should consider these developments in their strategic planning.
Wildlife Targets Missed report: This report emphasizes the need for more significant commitments from countries and businesses to protect our planet's biodiversity, a reminder that sustainability should be integrated into businesses' long-term strategies.
Weekly Geopolitical Trend Radar, please access this radar at: http://www.geopolitics.io
Special Focus:
US-China Relations: The relationship between the United States and China has been gradually showing signs of a thaw after months of increasing tensions. In the clearest sign of this yet, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to visit Beijing on 18th June. This comes after several attempts to rebuild relations following incidents like the "spy balloon saga" where US fighter jets shot down a large Chinese balloon off the coast of South Carolina which had flown over sensitive military sites, leading to a global row about the use of Chinese spy balloons. Recent trust-building exercises were also hit by reports of a multibillion-dollar agreement between China and Cuba to build an eavesdropping facility on the island, although all parties involved denied the reports. There are still contentious areas such as trade and tensions over Taiwan, but cooperation on issues like climate change and health security have also been discussed. However, progress on these fronts has been limited as well [1].
Ukraine-NATO Relations: Ukraine will not be offered a timeline for joining NATO at its summit in Vilnius next month. Instead, Ukraine may be offered a shorter route when an offer of membership is made, which could be seen as an upgrade from anything offered to the country before. NATO members, outside of formal NATO structures, are also expected to offer post-conflict security guarantees to Ukraine. It is also likely that NATO will upgrade its current political relationship with Ukraine to a NATO-Ukraine council, which gives Ukraine a higher status in joint meetings. However, the absence of a clear timeline or conditions that Ukraine would need to meet to gain automatic NATO status has led to criticisms. The need to maintain NATO unity at such a critical time is seen as paramount. An attempt to require all NATO members to ensure 2% of GDP is spent on defence is also expected at the summit [2].
This week's geopolitical developments emphasize the complex interplay of hard power, economic power, noopolitik elements, and various state and non-state actors' roles and motivations. The ongoing tensions between the US and China, challenges faced by Ukraine, and advancements in AI technology are examples of these dynamics. Businesses should monitor these stories and assess their potential impact on organizational strategies and decision-making.
The depth of analysis, coherent structure and flow, and balanced perspective across topics in this report provide a strong command of global issues and how they intersect. Understanding these geopolitical dynamics and their direct translation into risks and opportunities for companies will provide even greater value for strategic decision-making and long-term planning.
Kindly reach out for further clarification or expansion on any of these topics. Best regards,
Your Geopolitical Analysis Department
Section II: AI Leader Board
Having successfully finalized the automation of our Trend Monitoring Radar, we can now devote our time to conducting a literature review on the major Generative AIs in the industry.
(1) Over the past few months, Meta released Llama, a Language Model (LLM) designed to advance research in this field. Despite being notably smaller in terms of parameters, with versions ranging from 7B to 65B, Llama has managed to match GPT-3's performance across numerous tasks. Initially, Llama was not open-sourced. However, a week after its release, the model was leaked on 4chan, leading to thousands of downloads.
Following the leak of Llama, there has been a surge of innovation with LLM agents built on it. Here are a few examples: Stanford University launched Alpaca, an instruction-following model based on the Llama 7B model. Researchers from UC Berkeley, CMU, Stanford, and UC San Diego open-sourced Vicuna, a fine-tuned version of Llama that rivals GPT-4's performance. The Berkeley AI Research Institute (BAIR) introduced Koala, a variant of Llama fine-tuned using internet dialogues. Nebuly open-sourced ChatLlama, a framework for building conversational assistants with your own data. FreedomGPT is an open-source conversational agent based on Alpaca, which itself is based on Llama. Lastly, the Colossal-AI project from UC Berkeley released ColossalChat, a ChatGPT-style model with a complete RLHF pipeline, again based on Llama.
(2) Google has launched its PaLM2 in its Cloud Vertex AI, and OpenAI has released Function Calling API via gpt-3.5-turbo-0613 and gpt-4-0613.
(3) We have delved into the assessment of Generative AI using standard assessment datasets and AI contest arenas.
AI landscape/A Survey of Large Language Models [arXiv]
The Ultimate Battle of LLMs [source]
Open LLMs Leaderboard [Hugging Face]
Total AI Battle Leaderboard [source]
We have successfully deployed our Trend Monitoring Radar (TMR) on the Wednesday section. We deployed a Python script to scan weekly news and asked AI to prioritize and categorize it. Additionally, we instructed AI to generate a weekly summary report based on the scanning data in a reporting style for the executive director of the Geopolitical Analysis department. The report is far from perfect, so please do not share the contents publicly. We will strive to make the entire process 100% automated and find ways to improve relevance, consistency, and accuracy in the future. our TMR is inspired by opensource.zalando.com/tech-radar/.
Geopolitics.Asia will provide serious policy analysis on Mondays, trend monitoring on weekdays, and cultural and lifestyle issues on weekends. Please note that our weekday situation monitoring will not include a trend radar or scenario analysis for the time being, as we work to fully automate these processes with AI. You can, however, access to our previous experiments on trend radar and scenario planning generated by the AI, 1) Simple scenario planning at Jan 26, 2023, 2) Double iteration scenario planning technique at February 2, 2023, 3) Triple iteration scenario planning techniqueat February 9, 2023, and 4) Hyperdimensional scenario planning technique at February 17, 2023.
Stay tuned for updates on this exciting development!