Weekend Reads: AI reckoning, middle power play, China surprise
By Anna Szymanski
Sept 25 (Reuters) - Looking for inspiration? Every Friday, Weekend Reads rounds up what the Reuters Open Interest team has been reading, watching and listening to.
From AI alarm bells to Indonesia's nickel crunch and China's war-tested energy supply, this week's reads cover a lot of ground.
This weekend, we're reading...
MIKE DOLAN, ROI Finance & Markets Columnist: Who leads the free world now? Writing in Project Syndicate, Michael Ignatieff at Central European University argues the mantle has passed not to Washington, but to the middle powers. As the US is pressuring traditional allies and challenging long-held norms, Canada, Europe, and the democracies of Africa, Asia and Latin America must now carry the ideals of freedom and democracy, Ignatieff argues.
GAVIN MAGUIRE, ROI Global Energy Transition Columnist: The International Energy Agency's latest report on electrification covers the progress made so far around the world, pointing out the remaining gaps and the specific challenges facing utilities and grid developers in every major region.
CLYDE RUSSELL, ROI Asia Commodities and Energy Columnist: This article from consultancy Project Blue looks at how a water shortage is threatening Indonesia's nickel production and may cloud future investments.
ANNA SZYMANSKI, ROI Editor-in-Charge: In this Reuters article, technology correspondents Greg Bensinger and Deepa Seetharaman break down the 10 days that changed AI: how staff at leading labs sounded the alarm on AI safety, sometimes in apocalyptic terms, and triggered calls for a slowdown from major industry leaders.
We're listening to...
RON BOUSSO, ROI Energy Columnist: In this podcast from the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, Erica Downs and Michal Meidan discuss China's response to the energy shock sparked by the Iran war. One of the more surprising developments since Iran largely closed off the Strait of Hormuz has been how little damage it has done to China's economy.
And we're watching...
JAMIE MCGEEVER, ROI Markets Columnist: Fears of AI "doomerism" have exploded in recent weeks, fueled by insiders and leading figures at frontier labs. But what does the CEO of the world’s most important chipmaker and valuable company think? In a wide-ranging interview, Nvidia NVDA.O CEO Jensen Huang tells Ezra Klein that the alarmism is, well, too alarmist.
Opinions expressed are those of the authors. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.