Indian Strategic Studies: 05/29/24

29 May 2024

The Indian Election and the Country’s Economic Future

RAGHURAM G. RAJAN

There is a buzz in India today – a sense of limitless possibilities. India has just overtaken its former colonial master (the United Kingdom) to become the world’s fifth-largest economy. If it maintains its current growth rate of 6-7% per year, it will soon overtake stagnant Japan and Germany to take over third place.

But by 2050, India’s workforce will start shrinking, owing to demographic aging. Growth will slow. That means India has only a narrow window in which to grow rich before it grows old: with per capita income of just $2,500, the economy must grow by 9% per year for the next quarter-century. That is an extremely difficult task, and the current election may well determine whether it remains possible at all.

THE CHINA MODEL

In pursuit of rapid growth, the Indian government intends to follow a tested road map: the same path that Japan took in the immediate postwar decades, and that China took after the death of Mao Zedong. During the first stage of the journey, labor flows out of the traditional agriculture sector as employment increases in low-skilled manufacturing – typically stitching garments or assembling components into electronic goods. This output is then exported to the developed world to capture the benefits of producing at scale.

East of Suez: The Folly of Britain’s Return to the Indian Ocean - OPINION

Dennis Hardy

More than half a century ago, the British government pledged to end its security operations east of Suez. The economy was going through one of its sticky patches and money had to be saved. But the real reason for the policy change was that the days of empire were over and newly independent states like India, Singapore, and Malaysia were ready to forge their own futures. The need for Britain to rove across the wider region had passed.

No one expected this historic decision to be reversed. Yet, step by step, this is exactly what has happened. Referred to in official circles as a ‘Tilt’ towards the region, the return was at first sotto voce, before more recent proclamations under the post-Brexit banner of ‘Global Britain.’

Returning to the Indian-Pacific

The first move was confirmed in 2014 (six years before Brexit) when the then prime minister, David Cameron, announced that work would begin on a new permanent naval base in Bahrain, strategically located within the Persian Gulf. Concerns about Bahrain’s dismal human rights record were brushed aside. Cameron argued that a stronger presence would not only prevent possible disruption to oil supplies from the region but could also be used for anti-terrorist operations and to counter piracy in the open sea beyond. Named HMS Juffair, the base is located in Manama, close to that of the US Fifth Fleet. Its proximity to Iran was a critical factor in its development, evidenced by America’s own concentration of naval power within the Gulf state. This is all very well but it might be timely for Britain to consider withdrawing in favor of an international task force supported by friendly states within the region.

Why Sri Lanka Should Take Islamist Radicalization More Seriously

Rathindra Kuruwita

On May 20, the Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) arrested four Sri Lankans suspected to be Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorists, at the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport in Ahmedabad, India. Three Indian Premier League cricket teams were scheduled to arrive ahead of the 2024 playoffs.

Indian media reported that the four men were communicating with a Pakistani ISIS handler “Abu.” ATS confiscated an ISIS flag and three loaded pistols in the possession of the four Sri Lankans.

The Press Trust of India news agency reported that the four men had a Pakistani handler and that they wanted to target BJP and RSS leaders Nupur Sharma, Rajah Singh, and Updesh Rana for “atrocities against Muslims.”

The four suspects, Mohammed Nusrath Gani (33), Mohammed Nafran (27), Mohammed Faris (35), and Mohammed Rasdin (43), were previously affiliated with the National Thowheeth Jamath, which carried out the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks in Sri Lanka.

Myanmar’s Surprising Rebels Deserve a Shot

Ruth Pollard

Myanmar’s generals have controlled the country for 53 of its 76 years as a modern state. While the pro-democracy forces elected in 2015 could not hold onto power peacefully, they now have a realistic chance of regaining it by force. The country’s neighbors, and a cautious West, should help them.

The military, which overthrew a civilian government led by former Nobel Prizewinner Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021, has in recent months lost control of vast swathes of territory and key border posts to resistance groups. The rebels now control important infrastructure projects, including Chinese-funded oil and gas pipelines and much of the 1,400-kilometer (870-mile) highway that runs from the northeastern Indian state of Manipur through Myanmar to Mae Sot in Thailand.

Buoyed by mass defections from the army, the swelling ranks of resistance groups are cooperating in ways that have surprised longtime Myanmar watchers. A significant number of ethnic armed organizations are aligning themselves with the shadow National Unity Government, founded by elected members of parliament who escaped after the coup.

Threat of communal violence grows in western and central Myanmar

Morgan Michaels

Six months since the launch of Operation 1027, Myanmar’s regime continues to suffer punishing setbacks across the battlefield. Anti-junta groups are now looking to expand their territorial control and consolidate their own administrations. Yet despite their progress and ambition they face a number of daunting obstacles, including rising communal tensions, territorial disputes, and a stubborn enemy that remains well resourced and determined to maximise the costs of war.

Faced with mounting losses in Rakhine, the regime has resorted to arming members of the Rohingya ethnic minority to counter the Arakan Army’s (AA) advance. The AA has reacted with inflammatory rhetoric and violence directed at the Rohingya. A dangerous dynamic is emerging, reminiscent of the communal tension in Rakhine State between 2012 and 2017 which led to episodes of violence perpetrated by communities along ethnic lines. In the centre of the country, the regime has made a turn back towards indiscriminate violence and is upping support for local militias, a move that could supercharge inter-village conflict. But some attacks by local People’s Defence Forces (PDFs) may be inadvertently driving the growth of these regime-aligned outfits, referred to as Pyu Saw Htee.

Why China is winning the weapons race America is driving away its talent

Sam Dunning

In 1949, Chinese-born scientist Qian Xuesen (1911-2009) drew a diagram on a blackboard at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) that would change the course of military history. It showed the path of a projectile rising elliptically up into the atmosphere before gliding down and cruising along the outline of the globe.

His vision was fated to become reality. More than 70 years later, in October 2021, Western media outlets reported that the Chinese military had conducted two top-secret tests on a new kind of hypersonic weapon. Its flight closely resembled Qian’s sketch: an object was fired into near-Earth orbit, which then descended further before releasing a hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV) travelling at more than five times the speed of sound.

China denies this event had anything to do with the military. But Western experts believe it was a successful test of a fractional orbital bombardment system (FOBS) weapon with an HGV element — in other words, a rapid and stealthy means of delivering nuclear or conventional ballistic payloads. Such a weapon could alter America’s nuclear “calculus”, creating the possibility of a nuclear attack hitting the US before it has time to react.

Open-Source Technology and PRC National Strategy: Part II

Sunny Cheung

OpenHarmony, an open-source version of Huawei’s HarmonyOS, is perhaps the most successful, widespread open-source operating system in the PRC today. It is the most popular open-source operating system on Gitee (码云), the PRC’s largest code hosting platform with 12 million users. OpenHarmony is increasingly used in a variety of sectors, with varying degrees of importance to the country’s national security. As such, it is seen as a strategic asset, helping orient the country toward its desired technology- and innovation-based future and achieve the Party’s goals of self-reliance and technological sovereignty. By developing its own open-source ecosystem, PRC technology is ultimately likely to have robust cybersecurity, reducing its vulnerability to cyberattacks, and safeguarding its supply chain security. Open-source systems, including OpenHarmony, are also deployed in a variety of national security and military-related applications, while also forming the basis for proprietary software that is used in closed-source military systems. This raises questions about continued international collaboration in the development of open-source technology.

RISC-V and OpenHarmony Integration

OpenHarmony is a versatile operating system that can run on a broad spectrum of devices powered by RISC-V processors, [1] from tiny sensors to full-scale data centers. Its initial adoption was driven by a perceived need to secure and stabilize supply chains (China Brief, December 15, 2023). OpenHarmony enhances RISC-V’s utility across various application scenarios, which makes it increasingly attractive to developers and manufacturers. At the 2023 and 2024 RISC-V summits held in the PRC, the use of OpenHarmony was on full display in new products such as tablets, edge computing gateways, and cloud desktop terminals (Sina, August 29, 2023).

WTO Struggles With US–China Clean Energy Competition – Analysis

Mandy Meng Fang

The US–China trade battle in the clean energy sector reached a significant legal milestone when China initiated action over the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) at the World Trade Organization (WTO) in March.

As the world’s two largest economies and greenhouse gas emitters, China and the United States also rank first and second in the world in clean energy investment. US–China competition in clean energy technologies and industries, which are integral to global decarbonisation, has ramped up drastically in recent years. The pursuit of industrial competitiveness across the entire clean energy value chain is no longer merely viewed through the lenses of climate change mitigation and economic growth but increasingly through the perspectives of national security and geopolitical supremacy.

China’s growing clean energy dominance in the manufacture of electric vehicles, power batteries, solar panels and critical minerals processing has provoked concern and a backlash in the West, especially in the United States. The passing of the US IRA, promoted as ‘the most significant climate legislation’ in US history, manifests this concern. With its budget of US$369 billion, mostly comprised of tax credits for clean energy and climate-related programs, the IRA conditions the eligibility for such incentives on meeting requirementsfavouring the use of domestic over imported goods to avoid using goods of Chinese origin.

Shifting Discourse Between Xi And Putin On Ukraine – Analysis

Arran Hope

On May 16, Vladimir Putin, newly returned as president of the Russian Federation, traveled to Beijing. There, he was met by President Xi Jinping for their annual in-person meeting. Coverage from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) noted that the two countries’ bilateral relations “have weathered wind and rain, have become stronger over time, and have withstood the tests of the unpredictability of international storms (中俄关系历经风雨，历久弥坚，经受住了国际风云变幻的考验)” (FMPRC, May 16).

The meeting was accompanied by the signing and release of a Joint Communique (联合声明) (MFA, May 16). These two documents are part of the regular rhythm of Sino-Russian relations in the “new era.” Between these annual peaks in diplomatic activity, the two leaders—and self-described “old friends (老朋友)”—engage in a number of other conversations, both in person and over the phone (Youtube.com/CCTV, May 17).

Since the beginning of February 2022, in addition to signing three joint communiques, the two men have met in person five times (three times to coincide with the communiques, and also at the Beijing Winter Olympics on February 4, 2022; in Uzbekistan on September 15, 2022; and in Beijing at the Belt and Road Summit on October 18, 2023), and have conducted four phone calls (on February 25, 2022; on New Year’s Eve, 2022; on New Year’s Eve, 2023; and on February 9, 2024).

Ukrainian strike on Russian nuclear radar system causes alarm in West

James Kilner

A Ukrainian drone strike on a Russian radar station that can track nuclear missiles has sparked alarm in the West.

Kyiv hit the Armavir radar station in the Krasnodar border region on May 23, damaging the state-of-the-art facility, which provides conventional air-defence as well as forming part of Moscow’s nuclear warning system.

Ukrainian officials confirmed on Saturday that their forces had carried out the strike, saying the facility monitors airspace over the country and occupied Crimea.

The radar station has reportedly been able to track long-range Atacms missiles, delivered by the US to Ukraine earlier this year.

Mauro Gilli, a senior researcher at the Centre for Security Studies at ETH Zurich, said the drone strike had been a tactical success because it will force Russia to redeploy air defence systems and it also put down a marker that no Russian military site was untouchable.

What Hamas Called Its Female Captives, and Why It Matters

Graeme Wood

This week, Israel released an appalling video featuring five female Israeli soldiers taken captive at Nahal Oz military base on October 7. Fearful and bloody, the women beg for their lives while Hamas fighters mill around and alternately threaten to kill them and compliment their appearance. The captors call the women “sabaya,” which Israel translated as “women who can get pregnant.” Almost immediately, others disputed the translation and said sabaya referred merely to “female captives” and included no reference to their fertility. “The Arabic word sabaya doesn’t have sexual connotations,” the Al Jazeera journalist Laila Al-Arian wrote in a post on X, taking exception to a Washington Post article that said that it did. She said the Israeli translation was “playing on racist and orientalist tropes about Arabs and Muslims.”

These are real women and victims of ongoing war crimes, so it does seem excessively lurid to suggest, without direct evidence, that they have been raped in captivity for the past several months. (“Eight months,” the Israelis noted, allowing readers to do the gestational math. “Think of what that means for these young women.”) But to assert that sabaya is devoid of sexual connotation reflects ignorance, at best. The word is well attested in classical sources and refers to female captives; the choice of a classical term over a modern one implies a fondness for classical modes of war, which codified sexual violence at scale. Just as concubine and comfort woman carry the befoulments of their historic use, sabaya is straightforwardly associated with what we moderns call rape. Anyone who uses sabaya in modern Gaza or Raqqah can be assumed to have specific and disgusting reasons to want to revive it.

Gaza Cease-Fire Talks Could Restart as Pressure Increases on Israel

Carrie Keller-Lynn, Dov Lieber and Summer Said

Mediators are making efforts to restart cease-fire talks between Israel and Hamas to halt fighting in the Gaza Strip, after an international court ordered Israel to scale back military action in Rafah.

Talks to pause fighting in Gaza and return some Israeli hostages held in the enclave could resume as early as the new week ahead, according to Israeli officials who want discussions to be renewed. Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns, Mossad Director David Barnea and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani met in Paris on Friday to discuss the matter, said an Israeli official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Restarting talks would depend upon whether Hamas agrees to engage, Arab mediators said. Hamas has been approached but hasn’t yet agreed to participate, they said. The U.S.-designated terrorist organization cited what it described as a concern that Israel isn’t serious about reaching a deal. A senior Hamas official later denied that the organization had been informed “about anything related to the resumption of negotiations,” in a Saturday interview with Al Jazeera.

Big Tech execs say Europe’s new AI law could harm innovation

Tom Foster

Amazon and Meta executives told CNN this week that some of the fears about artificial intelligence are overblown and that the European Union’s sweeping new AI rules risk holding back innovation.

The EU gave the final green light to its AI act Tuesday, the same week tech leaders gathered in Paris for the annual VivaTech conference.

The first-of-its-kind law is poised to reshape how firms and other organizations in Europe use AI for everything from health care decisions to policing. It imposes blanket bans on using the technology in ways deemed “unacceptable” — for example, for social scoring.

The regulation also creates new disclosure obligations for large AI companies and requires more transparency on uses of AI considered “high-risk,” such as for education and hiring.

After Seven Months of War, Israeli National Resilience Is Clearly in Decline

Anat Shapira, Meir Elran & Mora Deitch

Resilience is usually defined as the capacity of any system to successfully deal with a severe disruption/disaster (natural or man-made), to maintain reasonable functional continuity during the event, recover from it as quickly as possible, and subsequently rise to a higher level of systemic functioning. In this article, we will examine four of the main elements of resilience, as manifested in 15 public opinion surveys conducted by INSS since the start of the war, the most recent of which was held between April 14–16, 2024.[1]

Trust in State Institutions

The surveys examined the level of trust that the Israeli public feels toward the IDF, the Israel Police, and the government of Israel. The data shows a high and steady level of trust in the IDF, reaching close to 90% among the Jewish population (see Figure 1). At the same time, the longer the war in Gaza continues, there is a clear and consistent decline in the percentage who express confidence in the IDF’s ability to win the war, from 92% at the start of the conflict to 64% in the most recent survey (see Figure 2). There has also been a decline in the percentage of those who believe that the goals of the campaign in Gaza will be achieved (see Figure 3). Just 10% of Jewish respondents believe that the goals of the war will be fully achieved. The gap between the very high level of trust in the IDF and these figures could be explained by the emotional connection that the Israeli public has with the IDF and the need to believe in it, more than a sober assessment of its capabilities.

On Proposed Countermeasures Against Russia to Compensate Injured States for Losses Caused by Russia’s War of Aggression Against Ukraine

Nigel Gould-Davies

In February 2022, Western governments immobilised (or ‘froze’) an estimated US$300 billion of Russian central-bank assets in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The United Nations, G7, European Union and other bodies have since called for Russia to compensate Ukraine and other parties for injury caused by its invasion. This has sparked a major policy debate: should Russia’s frozen assets be used to enforce this compensation, and if so, how?

While rapid consensus was achieved on freezing Russia’s assets, opinion on their subsequent use remains divided. But the debate is shifting. In recent months, several proposals have been floated. These range from using the profit on interest earned by the assets for Ukraine’s reconstruction (a move agreed by the EU in May); to various schemes to collateralise the assets, or interest on them, for loans to Ukraine; to full seizure of the assets and their transfer to Ukraine. These options would yield roughly US$3bn a year, US$50bn in total and US$300bn in total, respectively.

Full seizure is the clearest and simplest option. It would provide more funding, more quickly and more directly, than any other. Some governments have expressed reluctance to take this step for fear it would breach international law. This is a serious and legitimate concern. Western states and their partners rightly value the rule of law as a fundamental principle of international order. Seizing Russian state assets therefore requires a clear legal justification that is accepted by the governments that would carry this out.

Putin signals he’s open to peace talks, but Ukraine is right to be wary - Analysis

Nick Paton Walsh

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s signaling this week that he is open to peace talks should be viewed with vast, overshadowing caveats, and the weight of Ukraine’s - and the West’s - past experience of Russian diplomacy.

Friday saw a wealth of noise about negotiation, in the same month Moscow launched a third invasion of Ukraine from the north of Kharkiv.

The Reuters news agency cited four sources, in a report from two deeply experienced and connected Russia reporters, that Moscow was willing to consider peace talks which would freeze the current Russian occupation of about a fifth of Ukraine.

Putin responded to that report by suggesting Russia was willing to talk peace, based on earlier agreements. He hinted at an aborted deal in Istanbul, just after the war began, in 2022, which fell apart, mostly because Moscow’s forces were still rampaging across Ukrainian territory, and massacres around Kyiv had come to light.

Russian jamming leaves some high-tech U.S. weapons ineffective in Ukraine

Isabelle Khurshudyan and Alex Horton

Many U.S.-made satellite-guided munitions in Ukraine have failed to withstand Russian jamming technology, prompting Kyiv to stop using certain types of Western-provided armaments after effectiveness rates plummeted, according to senior Ukrainian military officials and confidential internal Ukrainian assessments obtained by The Washington Post.

Russia’s jamming of the guidance systems of modern Western weapons, including Excalibur GPS-guided artillery shells and the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, which can fire some U.S.-made rockets with a range of up to 50 miles, has eroded Ukraine’s ability to defend its territory and has left officials in Kyiv urgently seeking help from the Pentagon to obtain upgrades from arms manufacturers.

Russia’s ability to combat the high-tech munitions has far-reaching implications for Ukraine and its Western supporters — potentially providing a blueprint for adversaries such as China and Iran — and it is a key reason Moscow’s forces have regained the initiative and are advancing on the battlefield.

If you think Biden has troubles, just look at Trudeau

KYLE DUGGAN

He has trailed in polls by double digits for nearly a year, and the outlook for the once popular prime minister is so grim that some old guard Liberals have been grumbling that maybe he should just step down and give someone else a shot.

To turn it around and win a fourth term, Trudeau has less than 17 months before he must hold an election and face off against an ascendant Conservative Party and its firebrand populist leader, Pierre Poilievre.

Trouble is, nothing he’s tried so far to improve his standing has worked.

“The Liberals have tried to basically throw the political kitchen sink at the Conservatives to find a way to narrow the gap,” said Nik Nanos, one of the country’s leading pollsters.

Trudeau’s difficulties, to some extent, mirror those of President Joe Biden and some Western European leaders facing populist rage in a world still struggling to shake off the inflation and lingering anger over pandemic lockdowns.

Rule of the gods: cut access to energy, cut prosperity

Ralph Schoellhammer

In the end, Zeus was right.

When he punished Prometheus for giving fire to humanity, the old Greek god must have known that their days are now numbered. In popular culture we believe that the Promethean fire symbolizes technology and knowledge, but I believe it is much simpler.

The burning stick he gave to humans was in essence the first form of combustion, or the ability to create useful energy via the process of burning things. Once humanity realized that there are ways to transform and employ different forms of energy in addition to muscle power, the emergence of civilization was almost inevitable.

Every step along the way of energy’s evolution human beings became more prosperous, because it freed up time and capacity to do additional things. Once you no longer have to grind cereals into flour by hand but use wind- or watermills instead, you will have an awful amount of additional time available to engage in other activities, yet will still end up with more flour than before.

When It Comes to Manufacturing, It’s Us or Them

Terry Schilling

I grew up in western Illinois and saw firsthand what happens when unfair trade and financialization runs amok. Communities that were once thriving are now struggling. Major employers that once put entire small towns to work simply got up and left—to Mexico, to China, to anywhere but here at home.

Make no mistake about it: America has been gutted by our elite class, and now these wizards want to sell it for parts to the highest bidder.

U.S. Steel, a symbol of our past industrial unassailability, is in the process of being sold to a Japanese steelmaker. The irony here should not be lost on us—a company from a country that American industry helped rebuild after the Second World War is now commandeering an American industrial icon. This example is just one chapter of a larger story of a nation in decline. We must change course immediately or resign ourselves to this kind of national humiliation for generations to come.

An “America First” World

Hal Brands

What would become of the world if the United States became a normal great power? This isn’t to ask what would happen if the United States retreated into outright isolationism. It’s simply to ask what would happen if the country behaved in the same narrowly self-interested, frequently exploitive way as many great powers throughout history—if it rejected the idea that it has a special responsibility to shape a liberal order that benefits the wider world. That would be an epic departure from 80 years of American strategy. But it’s not an outlandish prospect anymore.

In 2016, Donald Trump won the presidency on an “America first” platform. He sought a United States that would be mighty but aloof, one that would maximize its advantages while minimizing its entanglements. Indeed, the defining feature of Trump’s worldview is his belief that the United States has no obligation to pursue anything larger than its own self-interest, narrowly construed. Today, Trump is again vying for the presidency, as his legion of foreign policy followers within the Republican Party grows. Meanwhile, fatigue with key aspects of American globalism has become a bipartisan affair. Sooner or later, under Trump or another president, the world could face a superpower that consistently puts “America first.”

That version of the United States wouldn’t be a global dropout. On some issues, it might be more aggressive than before. But it would also be far less concerned with defending global norms, providing public goods, and protecting distant allies. Its foreign policy would become less principled, more zero-sum. Most broadly, this version of the United States would wield outsized power absent any outsized ethos of responsibility—so it would decline to bear unequal burdens in pursuit of the real but diffuse benefits the liberal order provides.

The principle of no victory for Israel during the war - opinion

YISRAEL MEDAD

To grasp the machinations of President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, one first needs to understand that a fundamental aspect of the US policy toward Israel, since its founding, has been to prevent Israel from gaining as complete a victory as possible over its enemies.

A review of the past 76 years and research from the FRUS archives of the State Department make that obvious.

The second aspect is that since the Carter administration and with an extra Oslo Accords boost from the Clinton administration, and now being pushed by the Obama clique, the Biden Administration’s goal is to have Hamas survive this war victorious and to achieve the lost-but-now-found two-state solution in the post-war period.

As the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal noted on May 22, the Biden Administration for months opposed an Israeli invasion of Rafah.

Ukraine Faces a Crucial Moment in the War

Joshua Yaffa

Vovchansk is a small Ukrainian town that sits just three miles from the border with Russia. Dotted with farmland and Soviet-era factories, it carries the memory of successive invasions and occupations. During the Second World War, as the Wehrmacht and the Red Army fought relentlessly in and around nearby Kharkiv—control of that city changed hands four times—Vovchansk was occupied by Nazi forces for more than a year. Today, two years into Russia’s war in Ukraine, as the Russian military has managed to shift momentum in its favor, the town is again at the center of decisive battles.

The story of Vovchansk’s present-day occupation began on the first day of the invasion, in February, 2022, when Russian units streamed across the border. They took the town without much of a fight, but they were eventually worn down by insufficient troop numbers, disorganized command, and a lack of air and artillery power. That September, Ukraine mounted a surprise counter-offensive, leading Russian forces to retreat from Vovchansk and dozens of other towns in the Kharkiv region.

Maxims for the AI Age

REID HOFFMAN

Debates about technology have increasingly been reduced to stark dichotomies. Artificial intelligence should be curtailed, or it should be accelerated: thesis and antithesis, but no synthesis. Rather than picking a side, we should consider alternative rallying cries that place the focus where it belongs: humanity.

To that end, I propose six maxims. The first is a famous quip from the Carthaginian general Hannibal: “I shall either find a way or make one.” With AI still at a very early stage, we have barely scratched the surface of its potential. AI can help us find paths that we couldn’t see before, and it can help us make new ones through the force of human creativity. Tools like ChatGPT, Copilot, and Pi are trained on material by and about people. Far from replacing us, they extend us.

Imagine finding a previously indiscernible thread of insight that runs through Gödel, Escher, Bach, Caravaggio, Rousseau, and Vivaldi; or a thread tying together the ingredients you just happen to have in your kitchen. A vast collection of human creation and past contributions hangs before us like an expanding tapestry, and we now have the tools to do more with it than any previous generation ever could.

Elon Musk predicts jobs will become ‘kinda like a hobby’: ‘The AI and robots will provide any goods and services you want’

ELEANOR PRINGLE

Elon Musk is a notoriously hard worker. At present he’s the CEO of EV maker Tesla and rocket company SpaceX, founder of satellite venture Starlink and neurotechnology company Neuralink, and the owner of X—the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

But even Musk, who is well-known for sleeping on the floors of his factories in order to get the job done, believes careers will become something of an option in the future thanks to AI.

Musk, who is developing his own AI systems both at Tesla and through his 2023 startup xAI, has been vocal about the problems which advanced artificial intelligence could present.

But during an appearance at the VivaTech conference in Paris this week, Musk explained that his overall outlook on the technology is generally positive and could shift the future of work.

“In a benign scenario probably none of us will have a job,” he said. “But in that benign scenario there will be universal high income—not universal base income—[and] there will be no shortage of goods or services.”

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