On 4 June 2019, the French National Cybersecurity Agency, the ANSSI, celebrated its 10th Anniversary with a Cyberfestival.
The Agora 41 is taking shape
The Agora 41 (see its dedicated page on the ANSSI website) was fully part of the event. In September 2018, the ANSSI created this strategic forum of discussion and reflection composed by a group of experts (see Shaping the Security of the Cyber Future – Fr).
Enabling a Victorious Cyber-Ecosystem for Security (aka “ecosystem”)
The only rule we have to follow is freedom… of thoughts, production, output. And, of course, freedom is challenging.
During the event, each group presented its work in progress. We are all breaking new ground as this is the Agora 41 first year. We notably all managed to come to terms with the challenge to get busy experts from very diverse backgrounds working together. The diversity, willingly built within the Agora 41, thus starts bearing fruits. Cross-fertilisation and emergence of novel ideas for and perspectives on cybersecurity for the 21st century has begun.
A very special Guest, Professor Villani
Most notably, Professor Cédric Villani, the very famous French mathematician and elected deputy at the National Assembly, the leading and key political figure in France for everything related to sciences and new technologies, unexpectedly, included the Agora 41 in his very busy agenda.
Professor Villani listened to presentations, shared insights and commended the Agora’s efforts.
A Special issue to download
Last but not least, for the ANSSI’s anniversary, Sécurité Globale (Global Security) published a special number.
You will find there contributions from the ANSSI Director, Guillaume Poupard, and from members of the Agora 21. You can download this special number as pdf below:
In May 2019, for the second time in three months, Central U.S. is hammered by record-breaking floods. Those floods are impacting Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Nebraska and Iowa (Susannah Cullinane, Hollie Silvermane, Sheena Jones, “Central US reels from week of deadly weather”, CNN, May 26, 2019). In Van Buren, Arkansas, the Arkansas River level reached 38.3 feet, breaking the 1945 record at 38.1. Those floods follow the historical ones of March 2019 (Jean-Michel Valantin, “Bomb Cyclone on the Midwest: Floods, the Trade War and the Coming Agricultural Super Storm”, The Red (Team) Analysis, April 15, 2019).
In-between, the season has been unusually wet. As a result, already battered farmers face mammoth problems to plant the 2019 crops of corn and soy. In the middle of these extreme conditions, Texas, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana and Oklahoma are going through an exceptionally violent tornado season. For example, on 24 May 2019, Jefferson City, the state-capital of Missouri was devastated by a monster tornado, almost a wide mile, with peak winds reaching almost 160 miles per hour. On the morning, the city was in ruin (“Tornado That Ripped Through Jefferson City, Missouri, Rated EF3; Nearly 2 Dozen Injured », Weather.com, 23 May, 2019).
These events take place after the deep and lasting damages the March 2019 catastrophic floods generated. However, these very impressive destructions are only the visible dimension of the unfolding “long catastrophe” that comes in their wake. That long and complex catastrophe emerges from the combination of the slowdown of agriculture induced by the historical series of extreme weather events on the farm belt with the US-China trade war (Valantin, ibid).
Those, furthermore, combine with the rapidly spreading pandemic of African swine fever. The pandemic started in August 2018 has killed at least one and half million pigs in China and is now expanding in Asia (Dennis Normile, “African swine fever keeps spreading in Asia, threatening food security”, Science, May 19, 2019). Among a cascade of agricultural and food consequences, the decreasing number of pigs entails a diminution in soybean demand, as soy products are part of pigs’ diet (From Bloomberg, “How China’s swine fever outbreak is upending the soybean markets”, The South China Morning Post, 15 April 2019).
Is this extremely violent combination of climate, international and sanitary factors creating a very peculiar kind of pressure on the Midwest? As a result is the status of the Midwest in a globalised economy questioned?
In order to answer these related questions, it is of paramount importance to understand that those events also signal that we are entering in an age of permanent change, necessitating a constant adaptation to climate change and the consequent “long emergency” era (James Howard Kunstler, The Long emergency, surviving the converging catastrophes of the twenty-first century, 2005).
The Midwest as the catastrophic frontier
Floods and tornadoes as sustainable catastrophe
Since March 2019, the Midwest has been through a situation that we qualify here as “the long catastrophe”. It started when, between 14 and 20 March 2019, a historically powerful “bomb cyclone”, combined with snowmelt devastated Colorado and Central U.S., especially the Midwest “farmbelt” of Iowa and Nebraska, South Dakota and Kansas (Phil McCausland, « Midwest flooding inundates farms, rural towns to threaten livelihoods and future“, NBC News, March 22, 2019).
Consequently, these weather events triggered immense floods, which wrecked more than a million of acres (405000 hectares). These floods have immediate direct consequences, because they drown arable lands, destroy crops stocks, roads, houses, motorways, railroads, bridges, barns, cars, trucks, etc. (Humeyra Pamuk, P.J Huffstutter, Tom Polansek, “U.S farmers face devastation following Midwest floods”, Reuters, March 20, 2019).
All along April and May, the situation worsened. Indeed, from April 2018 to April 2019, the region also faced the wettest 12 months in a row since 1895. Soaked soils cannot absorb water anymore, which flows in the flooding rivers, such as the Arkansas River, the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers. On 21 May, after 136 days, the Mississippi River flood broke the 1927 flooding record (Steve Hardy, “Mississippi River breaks 92-year old flood stage record; here’s when water could go down », The Advocate, May 21, 2019.
Furthermore, this means that the combination of agricultural, commercial and financial loss is aggravating the transport infrastructure’s situation of the Midwest. Indeed, the river, railways and road heavy bulk transport are in a very bad shape, because of 30 years of insufficient management and investments. The floods are worsening the state of the vital infrastructures, when these connect the Midwest farmers to the world markets (David Hoppelman, ibid). This situation is aggravated by an historical series of tornadoes that devastated the Midwest, 13 days in a row (Amanda Schmidt, “May 2019 could be historic month for tornadoes after unprecedented twister streak finally ends at 13 days“, Accuweather, May 31, 2019.
The Midwest taken between the floods and the Asian pandemic
Delayed crops
This long catastrophe is devastating the Midwest agriculture. Only 49% of the corn acreage is planted, in sharp contrast with 78% in 2018 at the same time of year. The same can be said of soybean: 19% of acreage are planted, when 53% were planted in 2018. Going from bad to worse, only 5% of the soybean crop is now growing from the ground, against 24% in 2018 (“Crop Progress”, USDA, May 20, 2019).
As it
happens, this follows the damages of the March storm series, and their impacts are
so important because of the loss of stocks. Those have been accumulated since
2018, when the effects of the trade war launched against China led Beijing to
heighten its own tariff barriers against U.S. soybeans, while lowering them in
favour of the Brazilian production (Jean-Michel Valantin, “The US Economy, Between the Climate Hammer and the Trade war Anvil – The
US Soybean Crop case”, The Red (Team) Analysis
Society, October 8, 2018).
Destroyed crops
In other
words, the floods have destroyed the unsold part of the 2018 crops, while
endangering the 2019 crops. They also destroyed the potential financial capital
the stocks could have been for the farmers. Furthermore, the floods neutered
the taxes potential the sell of the 2018 stocks would have represented for the
public sector and thus for the maintenance of infrastructures (Irwin Redlener,
“The deadly cost of failing infrastructure in historic Midwest floods”, The Hill, 5 April 2019).
Enter Pandemic
As it happens, a new factor is further deeply upsetting the status of the Midwest soybean growers. Since August 2018, a pandemic of African swine flu attacked the Chinese pork industry, with its 400 million domestic pigs (Dennis Normile, Ibid.). A report by the third Dutch bank, Rabobank, suggest that in the worst case, up to 200 million pigs could be threatened (Orange Wang, Chad Bray, “China’s African swine fever outbreak and US trade war combine to create perfect storm for Chinese economy”, The South China Morning Post, 3 May 2019). This would represent more pigs than the total European and American park. Meanwhile, the disease is spreading to Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, and Russia (Dennis Normile, Ibid.).
The importance of pork in the Chinese diet is paramount because it is the favourite meat staple of the 1,4 billion strong nation. Knowing that farmers are feeding pigs with soybean products, this turns China into the main importer of soybean. If Chinese pork production were to be lowered by 30%, then the demand of soybean could decrease by 4,2% according to HSBC, knowing that the Chinese epidemic and the Asian pandemic will last several years (Orange Wang, Chad Bray, “China’s African swine fever outbreak and US trade war combine to create perfect storm for Chinese economy”, The South China Morning Post, 3 May 2019).
Riders on the storm
In other terms, the already meagre 2019 Midwest soybean production is at risk of being impacted by lowering prices due to mass death of Asian pigs. This risk is induced by the constant mortality of Chinese and Asian pigs, while the U.S. soybean crop will reach a final quantity.
If the soybean and corn prices were to rise 2019, because of the delayed crops, one must wonder if this rise will actually balance the decrease in demand due to high rate pigs mortality in China, as well as in Vietnam, Myanmar, Laos and Russia. As it happens, the Brazilian soybean crops and export are at record levels, because of the weak Brazilian currency. (Roberto Samora, “Brazil crops soar as weak currency, high prices boost deal“, Succesful Farming, 30/05/ 2019). It must also be added that China puts favorable tariffs on non-U.S. soybean imports, as a reaction to the high tariffs it imposes on the US soybean imports, in the context of the US-China trade war (Jean-Michel Valantin, “The US Economy, Between the Climate Hammer and the Trade war Anvil – The US Soybean Crop case”, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, October 8, 2018). So, there could be an abundance of soybean on the international market, while the Asian demand is going to continue decreasing. This potential price pressure would then take place at the time of the 2019 succession of extreme weather events, and of the U.S.-China trade war. It must be added that infrastructure damages, through the destruction of barns, silos, roads, highways, river ways, is semi-insulating the Midwest from world markets.
Meanwhile, this happens at a moment of widespread weather impacts all around the planet, stemming from floods, cold, heat. For example, Australia, one the wheat world producer is now importing, because of a very poor crop that follows violent episodes of drought and floods (Colin Packham, “Australia to import wheat for the first time in 12 years as drought bites”, Reuters, May 15, 2019).
In other words, there are high risks that heightening tensions on the commodity and food markets will define the economic situation of the second half of 2019. In the same time, insurance and reinsurance companies are going to have to face the costs of the mammoth episodes of infrastructure and agricultural destruction in the Midwest.
It could be a new kind of agricultural, financial, food and social hybrid crisis. In a time of globalization, this crisis will spread … globally.
Errata 5 June 2019: We changed a sentence in the introduction where a grammatical error led to a confusion between the real number of pigs killed in China and the potential number that would be killed in a worst-case scenario. We now use the real number of pigs so far killed in China. We clarified and detailed the source for the worst case scenario in the corresponding paragraph in the body of the text, corrected the number of domestic pigs in China and added estimates from HSBC.
The U.S. and China are locked in an increasingly heated struggle for superpower status. Many perceived this confrontation initially only through the lenses of a trade war. However, the ZTE “saga” already indicated the issue was broader and involved a battle for supremacy over 21st century technologies and, relatedly, for international power (see When AI Started Creating AI – Artificial Intelligence and Computing Power, 7 May 2018).
The Sino-American technological battle increasingly looks like a fight to the death, with the offensive against Huawei aiming notably to protect future 5G networks (Cassell Bryan-Low, Colin Packham, David Lague, Steve Stecklow And Jack Stubbs, “The China Challenge: the 5G Fight“, Reuters Investigates, 21 May 2019). For Huawei and China, as well as for the world, consequences are far reaching, as, after Google “stopping Huawei’s Android license”, and an Intel and Qualcomm ban, the British chip designer ARM, held notably by Japanese Softbank, now stops relations with Huawei (Paul Sandle, “ARM supply halt deals fresh blow to Chinese tech giant Huawei“, Reuters, 22 May 2019; “DealBook Briefing: The Huawei Backlash Goes Global“, The New York Times, 23 May 2019; Tom Warren, “Huawei’s Android And Windows Alternatives Are Destined For Failure“, The Verge, 23 May 2019).
These moves underline the immense interests involved. Indeed, the new technologies, from artificial intelligence (AI) in its multiple forms to the internet of things (IoT) and communication, through the quantum information sciences (QIS) and Technologies, participate in a paradigmatic change, which also includes governance, international power and the way wars may be fought and won.
Here, we shall focus on such possible new faces of security in general and war in particular. These potential – and already operating – changes stem from the complex dynamics that have been unleashed. As we found out previously, the difficult march towards advanced robots, added to the strong interest stakeholders have in obtaining Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems, notably Deep-Learning (DL), which are operational and profitable, lead to an unexpected consequence. Human beings themselves are increasingly being dragged into the ecosystem of AI-agents. They are actually turned into the actuators of algorithms.
We shall first look at what is happening and explain how human beings become the actuators of AI-agents, giving examples. Then we shall sketch a scenario explaining how this evolution could lead to a dystopian future where a state actor mastering AI-agents could win a war in a new way.
Third, we shall turn to the digital and the material worlds and to the bridges between them. We shall highlight that the need to see AI developing will also lead to a further dematerialisation of the world, with, as extreme, virtual reality. However, we shall explain that total dematerialisation is impossible and comes with a major hidden cost, rising energy consumption, with thus impacts on climate-change. We shall also highlight how users’ countries bear the brunt of the burden and face major systemic threats. Finally, we shall identify a way for them to preempt these systemic threats, in an interesting strategic twist.
How human beings become the actuators of AI-agents
Case study
The example of Google DeepMind’s Go Game
First let us take again our initial example of Google DeepMind’s go game (see Inserting Artificial Intelligence in Reality). As we explained, the setting of the game looks as follows:
Screenshot of the video Google DeepMind: Ground-breaking AlphaGo masters the game of Go – 1:19
We pointed out that to see DeepMind’s AI-agent becoming fully operational, one had to provide a sensor to replace the lady in C and an actuator instead of the gentleman in A.
However, to get an actuator in A, we would ideally need an advanced robot. As seen, such sophisticated advanced robots are not yet available (★ Sensor and Actuator (4)…). We are still a long way from getting the kinds of advanced robots we would need for many of the actuating tasks AI/DL-agents would ideally require (Ibid.).
Thus, what is happening is that A will remain a human being for the near future, while AI and notably DL will go on expanding because stakeholders need their expansion (Ibid.).
In other terms, stakeholders promoting AI-agents and their use, to overcome the still current dearth of non-human actuators, will turn the very human beings that AI are meant to help into the actuators of these AI-agents.
Traveling by air
As another example, let us take a series of AI-agents that aim at selling airline tickets. The final aim of the traveler is to be able to go from its home to place P. Through a series of digitalisation of the process and use of various algorithms, the best ones being of the deep-learning kind, the future traveler will be presented with a series of destinations and airlines routes and tickets. S/he will choose one then pay the airline for her or his ticket.
If our traveler has a smart phone, then s/he will be able to get the ticket on her or his smart phone. If not s/he will have to print it. At the airport, without a smart phone s/he will have to print a boarding pass.
In any case s/he will have to print the luggage tickets. According to the robots available in the airport, s/he will have to scan the boarding pass and luggage ticket, put the luggage on the carrier belt, check the weight, or, alternatively haul the luggages in a robot that will then check the luggage tickets and weight.
Finally, s/he be ready to go through security checks.
For most steps, we can see how the absence of a smart advanced device is compensated by the user, i.e. a human being. Users have been turned into the actuators of the AI-agents of the airline, meanwhile also replacing the former employees of the airline company. Furthermore, when a smart device is operational, the consumers or users are those who have to buy the smart devices. They thus also now bear parts of the investments that were once paid by companies.
The case is less clear when we look at smart homes and some of their components, such as the famous AI-assistants Amazon Alexa that connects with the smart speaker Echo or Google assistant that connects with IoT devices from cell phone to tablet through speaker Google Home.
We can imagine that one of these assistants could voice a suggestion such as “to reach on time the place where you must meet this client or that person, you should depart now and drive according to this itinerary.”
A first series of actuators would be at work that translate the result of DL algorithms into a series of sentences ordered in a way that makes sense in terms of a human agenda. Other actuators would then operate to voice the suggestions in a way a human being can hear and understand. In other cases, if speech capabilities are not available, then the advice could be displayed on a screen.
Probably, the person receiving the suggestions would perceive the AI-assistant as helping her or him, which is likely true.
Yet, from the point of view of the AI-agents, the individual would also be acting on AI-agents’ suggestions. The individual would making the AI-agents output exist in the physical world.
Training human beings in acting without thinking first
What feels disturbing from a human being point of view is that our own “cognition to action” sequence, built over 40.000 years if we consider only the Cro-magnon (Encyclopaedia Britannica), is broken. In a nutshell, if we make a very simplistic assessment of the sequence leading to our actions, we have more or less the following pattern: sensing the world, analysing the data collected, deciding according to analysis, acting. This model should be refined using available research. Yet, whatever the findings and most recent research, with the AI-assistant, our usual process is changed and one part of it is removed.
In our case, the AI-agents make the analysis, and then suggest possibilities for decisions. This is meant to reassure us and let us believe that we are free to decide to act or not, then to act accordingly.
However, deciding without any control over inputs and analysis, then acting upon this decision goes very much against the efforts at understanding, knowledge and education of thousands of years of history. It “feels” as if we were transformed into at best children, at worst slaves … or robots. Even though decision remains into our hands, decision without awareness of the analysis is not a real decision and the door is opened to the possibility for any manipulation or error.
Hence, here, the absolute need to develop trust, as well as the capacity to “enter into” and supervise the analysis, i.e. to overcome the AI “blackbox problem” (e.g. Will Knight, “The Dark Secret at the Heart of AI“, MIT Technology Review, 11 April 2017)
Actually, the fact that the corporate sector owns the AI-agents and thus will use it for its own benefit first and second for the benefit of its client only heightens the problem. Decades of advertisement and marketing attempts at manipulating the decision-taking process of consumers only makes the problem worse, to say nothing of centuries of lobbying for the benefit of companies, most often against the public good.
Thus, only a very strong role of political authorities as warrant of the public good and of the security of each and every citizen, be it an individual or a legal entity, may, at the end of the day, establish the conditions for the trust that will absolutely be necessary to see AI-agents that turn human beings into actuators develop safely.
Moreover, it will be crucial to make sure that human capabilities are not lost in the meantime. A couple of authors evoke this possibility in the case of strategic decision-making, for example (Andrew Hill, “Artificial intelligence creates real strategic dilemmas“, Financial Times, 20 May 2019).
Winning a War through Submission of the Enemy: reflection on a dystopian scenario
A dystopian scenario can be imagined to highlight some of the features of this possible reality.
The new society is segmented in two.
Wealthier citizens and companies can buy the robots that then act in their place, when these advanced robots are available. In that case, these richer people save time and resources for a certain number of tasks, completely outsourced to AI-agents and their advanced robots actuators. True enough, in the meanwhile, they also abandon part of their power, as action – as in the German Macht or in the English Might – is fundamentally power. Yet, a few of them, those who are wise enough to do so, use the time spared for other, more evolved tasks.
Poorer citizens and businesses, the large majority, is increasingly turned into the actuators of the AI-agents and their stakeholders. Their willpower is apparently maintained, but, because they act on suggestions and analyses made by AI-agents belonging to corporate stakeholders, they are de facto subservient to the interests of theses stakeholders.
For instance, continuing with our previous example, when on his or her way to a meeting, the poorer citizen’s connected device will choose an itinerary that will come close to this or that shop. The device will then tell her or him that s/he needs to buy this very product, by chance available in that shop. On the contrary, our wealthier citizen, with his or her set of robots, will not have to go through this. S/he will find the products already delivered in his or her home.
It could appear as if the poorer people were actually better off in terms of freedom than the wealthier class. This is however questionable, because in the poorer people’s case, a habit to rely on something that tells you what to do without thinking is developed. Thus, the appearance of freedom of decision is indeed only an appearance. Then, once the habit is formed and, as a result, the capability to think before to act is progressively lost, the door is opened to any manipulation.
True enough, the wealthier individuals will be put in front of the fait accompli, but the very sequence leading from reflection to action will not have been broken and damaged. If – and this is a big if – the wealthier people use the time spared to educate themselves further, then they can escape another danger, which is to completely give up any mastery over some sectors of their life.
In both cases, without strong control and protection, citizens are at great risk to lose a part of their humanity and to be transformed into things. They may progressively become the tool of AI-agents and of their stakeholders, without ever fighting, because the transition will have been slow and apparently innocuous.
Now, consider, that the main stakeholder(s) having sold the range of AI-agents is a foreign power. Alternatively, the businesses selling these AI-agents may be foreign and, for a host of reasons, including national interest and national security, have to obey foreign political authorities.
That foreign power would then have near complete control over the population using the AI-agents. In case of war, assuming the army and the political authorities of the targeted country intend to fight, the foreign actor ruling over the AI-agents could easily manipulate the using population, be it rich or poor, each according to the way they were transformed. The army could then be faced with possible attacks without and especially with a mass of enemy within, as the population could be turned in various ways against its own army. The aggressor would fight and possibly win with a minimum level of casualties.
Considering the danger, political authorities – again assuming they are neither predatory nor “sold” to a stronger and more powerful actor – have an even greater interest in making sure the population they rule do not end up actually being ruled by others.
In general terms, the point here is not to refuse technological progress, nor to heighten the fear of and hostility against AI. What matters is to be aware of the risks and to try making sure we take right actions so that we use progress at best, while we mitigate unintended adverse consequences.
More specifically, for each and every polity, it becomes important to understand the stakes, to make sure an alien and possibly negative rule is not being imposed on a candid population. Even without intended agressive intention, the very possibility that the capacity to ease a foreign rule is set up should ring the alarm bell and trigger protective actions.
Now, as was clear notably from the example of the airline travel, what is at stake here is not only the use of AI-agents. The issue is broader and includes the whole digitalisation process, as we shall now explore.
From bridging worlds to changing the balance of worlds
Initially, we identified that the sensors and actuators for an AI-agent (or a series of them) also serve as bridges between different types of worlds or reality (Inserting Artificial Intelligence in Reality).
Changing the worlds to overcome difficulties
Digital gateways
We can have AIs that operate solely within the digital world. In that case, sensors and actuators bridge mainly different ways to understand the digital world. For example, a sensor will “read” a digital input initially intelligible to humans or to another device and make it intelligible to the AI-agent. The actuator will take the AI output and make it understandable digitally to whichever actor needs it, be it human or not.
The latest feat realised by Google DeepMind’s AI-agent AlphaStar, when it mastered Blizzard Game StarCraft II, exemplifies such digital-only environments (AlphaStar Team, “AlphaStar: Mastering the Real-Time Strategy Game StarCraft II“, DeepMind Blog, 2019 – check their website for more photos and videos).
AlphaStar in action with the difference sequence, input and output – Check DeepMind original image for animation
Dematerialising the world
In a more complex way, we have sensors and actuators that must act as bridges between the physical or material world and the digital one.
Faced with the difficulty to bridge truly different worlds, one way forward, besides transforming human beings into actuator, is to bring as much as possible of the physical world into the digital one. This is exactly what the example above of the airline travel described.
We may thus expect that, in the years to come, the digitalisation of the world will be even more promoted. Indeed, we saw previously the interest various stakeholders have in further developing and making operational and profitable AI systems, notably involving DL (see part 3 of ★ Sensor and Actuator (4): Artificial Intelligence, the Long March towards Advanced Robots and Geopolitics). Thus, these actors are highly likely to turn human beings into actuators, while also reducing as much as possible the need for actuators bridging the digital to physical world, in a two-pronged strategy.
The digitalisation of the world becomes a dematerialisation with which human beings have to find ways to interact.
Welcome to the Matrix
An extreme evolution would be to further develop what is called virtual reality, thus bringing ever further human beings within the world of AI-agents. In that case, actuators would be turned upside down. They would not be any more devices actings as bridges from the digital world to the physical one and allowing AI-agents to output in the physical world. They would be device bridging the physical world into the digital one, thus similar to sensors, and bringing human beings along into the world of AI-agents.
Welcome to the Matrix!
The device could be external, as for example with the famous headsets (e.g. “The Best VR Headsets for 2019“, PC Magazine) or with Google glasses (latest generation for businesses, released on 20 May 2019). They could even be implanted within human beings. They could be a mix between both, as with AlterEgo, “a non-invasive, wearable, peripheral neural interface that allows humans to converse in natural language with machines, artificial intelligence assistants, services, and other people without any voice…The feedback to the user is given through audio, via bone conduction.”…The sensors “captures peripheral neural signals when internal speech articulators are volitionally and neurologically activated” (AlterEgo website; see also Lauren Golembiewski, “How Wearable AI Will Amplify Human Intelligence“, HBR, 30 April 2019).
TED2019 | April 2019
The dematerialisation of the world up to virtual reality and the inversion of actuators, as well as before that stage the transformation of human beings into actuators, has crucial impacts for the armed forces, because the nature of their possible targets change. As a result the ends, ways and means of attack and defence also need to change correspondingly. Yet, as explained below, we must not either overstate changes. Considering the time needed to develop new weapon systems and armaments, it is crucial to anticipate such evolutions.
The impossible total dematerialisation of the world and vulnerabilities
Let us now look at these sequences schematically but as a whole, as a system, with the diagram below.
Artificial Intelligence, Digitalisation and Dematerialisation of the World
There is no such thing as a solely digital world
Because we, as human beings, live in the real world and are physical beings, then, at one stage or another, even what appeared initially as taking place only in the digital world will have to be translated into the physical one. No matter how much dematerialisation will take place, there will have to be bridges with the physical world.
No matter how much dematerialisation will take place, there will have to be bridges with the physical world.
Thus, actually, the proper way to look at the issue from a systemic point of view is not to envision two types of sequences, digital-digital on the one hand, and digital-physical on the other hand, the two being separated.
What we have is always a unique sequence that, in terms of worlds or environments is physical-digital-digital-physical. If the digital part is equal to zero, then we find back classical physical interactions. But we cannot remove in any case the two physical extremities, even though we thought we were simply in a digital-digital sequence.
Even in the extreme case of a widespread virtual reality, human beings would still need to see their basic needs met, such as food and drink, as indeed portrayed in the films The Matrix. Their emotional and cognitive process would have to be kept healthy as in Total Recall. Meanwhile the digital system would need to function.
Energy, the physical hidden component of digitalisation
Indeed, however hidden, the dematerialisation of society comes always with a fundamental bridge or link to the physical or material world. This link is the use of the most basic fundamental resource of the physical world, energy, as Thomas Homer Dixon so insightfully highlighted (The Upside of down, catastrophe, creativity and the renewal of civilization, 2006).
In this framework, Janine Morley, Kelly Widdicks, and Mike Hazas examine “the phenomenal growth in Internet traffic, as a trend with important implications for energy demand” (“Digitalisation, energy and data demand: The impact of Internet traffic on overall and peak electricity consumption”, Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 38, April 2018, Pages 128-137, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2018.01.018). Calling for an agenda to better understand and then mitigate “the most problematic projections of Internet energy use”, they also highlight the large energy use the Internet and thus digitalisation imply, even though various scenarios remain possible considering uncertainty. For example:
“Most estimates of ICT-related energy consumption also predict steady growth. For instance, Van Heddeghem et al. estimate that the electricity consumed by digital devices and infrastructures is growing faster (at 7% per year) than global electricity demand itself (at 3% per year), with the rate of growth of networks highest of all (at 10.4%). Andrae and Edler, also anticipating a compound rate of growth of 7% per year, calculate that the production and operation of ICT will rise to 21% of global electricity consumption by 2030: this is an absolute rise to 8000 TWh, from a base of around 2000 TWh in 2010. In a worst case scenario, this could reach as high as 50% of global electricity use by 2030, but only 8% in the best case.”
W. Van Heddeghem, S. Lambert, B. Lannoo, et al. “Trends in worldwide ICT electricity consumption from 2007 to 2012”, Comput. Commun., 50 (2014), pp. 64-76A and Andrae, T. Edler, “On global electricity usage of communication technology: trends to 2030”, Challenges, 6 (2015), p. 117, quoted by Morley, Widdicks, and Hazas.
If efforts at energy efficiency exist, they have been, so far, unable to offset the growth in energy usage (Ibid.).
The IT companies, climate change-related disasters and responsibility
Needless to say, the impact in terms of climate change and then multiple related adverse effects are similarly important.
Could Microsoft’s move show not only full awareness of their heavy energy footprint but also of their participation in global climate-change related disasters?
As a further signal of this heavy energy footprint, with adverse climate-change-related impacts, “Microsoft has joined a conservative-led group that demands fossil fuel companies be granted legal immunity from attempts to claw back damages from the climate change they helped cause”… It thus “become[s] the first technology company to join the CLC [Climate Leadership Council], which includes oil giants BP, ExxonMobil, Shell, Total and ConocoPhillips among its founding members.” (Oliver Milman, “Microsoft joins group seeking to kill off historic climate change lawsuits“, The Guardian, 1 May 2019). Besides emphasising how much we have to take “corporate communication” with a pinch of salt, could Microsoft’s move show not only full awareness of their heavy energy footprint but also of their participation in global climate-change related disasters?
Users’ countries pay the bill, systemic threats and a strategic twist
Users’ countries and systemic threats
Furthermore, Morley, Widdicks, and Hazas, highlights a crucial point:
“If accurate [the studies], this suggests that the bulk of energy consumption in Internet infrastructures takes place in the country of use.”
As a result, in the same dynamic, first the population (be it citizens or businesses) of countries using AI-systems are turned into actuators. Second, they see their world dematerialised and have to find ways to cope with it. Third, when they can, they also have to invest in expensive equipments if they want to avoid being completely “robotised”. Fourth, they also have to pay for upfront and hidden energy cost and their aftermath, through their energy bill and through their taxes.
Obviously the consequences for a state and its population are very different whether a country is a producer of dematerialisation and AI or a consumer thereof. The position in terms of leadership and race to AI and computing, thus in terms of influence as well as market share also matters. Those ahead of the race and the most influential develop a power over the others that is immense and multi-dimensional.
For the other countries, only strong political authorities, aware of the challenges faced, may hope to tackle such systemic threat to a whole population.
As a result, considering the heavy American supremacy in the matter, and the enormous Chinese efforts to become leader in that field, the confrontation of the two countries becomes even more of a logical outcome, not to say inevitable. Meanwhile, other countries, if they can, would better wake up rather sooner than later, with a whole array of responses, if they do not want to pay an extremely heavy price.
A strategic twist
In an interesting strategic twist, energy dependency on the one hand, human dependency on the other, for the whole system, could well be the keys less influential countries may play.
In other words, as a first type of responses, concerned political authorities could seek to educate a population not to fall prey to the worse cognitive impacts of “being turned into actuators”.
Second, actors could develop a range of actions, tools and weapons aimed at threatening the energy usage of the purveyors of the dematerialised world and of AI-agents. They could then use the very existence of these device as a preemptive insurance to make sure the dematerialising and AI suppliers do not go against their population, or behave in a way that would have adverse consequences for population and country. In case of need, such as a declared war, actions against energy, the bridge between the digital and the physical world, could make the whole digital edifice of the enemy crumble.
Finally, from a defensive and security perspective both human beings and the “energy bridge” must be secured in priority. This means also acting to make sure that climate change and its impacts, as well as energy depletion, do not finally destroy those that contributed to the spread of these existential threats for the Earth living species.
Featured image: Samsung’s Virtual Reality MWC 2016 Press Conference, by Maurizio Pesce from Milan, Italia [CC BY 2.0] via Wikimedia Commons.
2018 and 2019 are scientific and geopolitical turning point for the warming Arctic region. Since 2013, Chinese cargo convoys have used the Russian Northern Sea Route increases (Atle Staalesen, “A Chinese-built Arctic tanker tests spring ice along remote Russian coast », The Independent Barents Observer, May 07,2019). In effect, the rapid warming of the region transforms this passage into a navigable space (Atle Staalesen, “The warmest ever winter on the Northern Sea Route”, The Independent Barents Observer, March 28, 2019).
In the meantime, the Russian political, economic, and military authorities have launched a massive program of infrastructure, maritime and defence development of this 4500 km long area, linking the Bering Strait to the Russian-Norway frontier (Jean-Michel Valantin, “The Warming Russian Arctic: Where Russian and Asian Strategies Interests Converge?”, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, November 23, 2016).
America is Back (in the Arctic)
Finally, on 6 May 2019, the U.S secretary of State Mike Pompeo lashed out after the presence and politics of Russia and China in the Arctic:
“We’re concerned about Russia’s claim over the international waters of the Northern Sea Route, including its newly announced plans to connect it with China’s Maritime Silk Road.”
The U.S.- China confrontation is not “only” about the US trade deficit, but also about power politics in a warming and changing world.
In other terms, the warming of the Arctic transforms this region into the new frontier of a new driver of the confrontation between the US and China. It reveals that this confrontation is not “only” about the US trade deficit, but that it is also about power politics in a warming and changing world.
1. Three great powers in a warming Arctic
The economic development of the Russian Arctic was also an important topic during the second Belt and Road Forum, held in Beijing from 25 to 27 April 2019. There, Chinese president Xi Jinping and Russian president Vladimir Putin exchanged about the necessary Chinese and Asian investments for the next phase of development of the Northern Sea Route (NSR) (Atle Staalesen, “Putin steps up talk with Beijing over Arctic Shipping”, The Independent Barents Observer, April 30, 2019).
Towards the Sino-Russian “polar silk road”?
Moreover, Vladimir Putin took the project to the next level, when he said that the Northern Sea Route could become part of the Chinese Maritime Belt and Road initiative. This would imply major Chinese investments, in order to further develop the logistical and especially transhipment capabilities along the Siberian coast (Staalesen, ibid).
A few days later, on 10 April 2019, in Saint Petersburg, the Russian development of the warming Arctic was a central topic discussed during the “Arctic forum – A territory of dialogue”. The main event of the forum was a roundtable gathering the four Arctic heads of government of Norway, Finland, Sweden and Iceland, hosted by President Vladimir Putin. The summit attracted more than 4000 people.
The roundtable between the five national leaders was focused on the development of better political and trade relationships (Atle Staalesen, “ A united Nordic front sits down with Putin”, The Independent Barents Observer, April 10, 2019.
This was deemed necessary after the four years of difficult relations that followed the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014.
From Finland, with not so much love
As it
happens, one month later, on 7 May, the U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
addressed the participants to the Arctic Council in Finland, the international
body of all the nations of the Arctic region. During his speech, he declared
that:
“The Arctic is at the forefront of opportunity and abundance, … It houses 13 per cent of the world’s undiscovered oil, 30 per cent of its undiscovered gas, an abundance of uranium, rare earth minerals, gold, diamonds, and millions of square miles of untapped resources, fisheries galore… Steady reductions in sea ice are opening new passageways and new opportunities for trade, … This could potentially slash the time it takes to travel between Asia and the West by as much as 20 days … Arctic sea lanes could become the 21st century Suez and Panama Canals”.
However,
Mike Pompeo also focused his declaration on the strategic threat coming from
Russia and China. After denouncing the threat of Chinese submarines in the
Arctic, he added:
“Do we want the Arctic Ocean to transform into a new South China Sea, fraught with militarization and competing territorial claims? »
Mike Pompeo from Anslen, ibid.
This remark reveals how the Arctic, which has been a “lost frontier” of American geopolitics during decades, is now becoming an attractor for the U.S. strategy. This happens through the powerful combination of the region geophysical destabilization and of the Chinese maritime, commercial and political presence there (Jean-Michel Valantin, “Arctic: the US lost frontier?”, The Red (Team) Analysis, July 14, 2014).
2. Traders and soldiers at the end of the ice
NATO in the
cold
It must be noted that the remarks of Secretary Pompeo are following the first NATO Arctic manoeuvres, called “Trident Juncture 2018”. These manoeuvres mobilised 50.000 soldiers, 150 planes, 10.000 land vehicles and 60 warships (Christopher Woody, “The US Navy is pushing north, closer to Russia in freezing conditions — and it’s planning on hanging around up there“, Business Insider, 7 November 2018. They were centred on Norway and Iceland, where landing, deployment and combat exercises took place.
They were conducted to demonstrate the Reaction Capability against a hypothetical and unnamed adversary that would endanger a fellow NATO member in the Arctic region. This official “anonymousness” did not stop Russia to protest officially against this military exercise taking place very close to its land and maritime frontiers (Christopher Woody, “Russia aims its missile drills shoulder-to-shoulder with NATO’s biggest war games in years”, Business Insider, 31 October, 2018).
As it happens, in military and geo-economic terms, Trident Juncture could very well be understood as a “statement”. It “expresses” or “reminds of” the potential capability of NATO to “block » the North Atlantic end of the Northern Sea Route.
This “duel with
three stake holders” redraws the maps of globalization. It is especially
true given the rise of the economic and military convergence of Russia and
China.
The Russian
warming Arctic, an Asian attractor
The warming of the
Russian Arctic is having gigantic geopolitical and business consequences,
because the very effects of climate change are turned into an engine of the
Russian power of attraction (Joe Romm, “Arctic
Death Spiral Update: What Happens in the Arctic Affects Everywhere Else“, Think Progress, May 3, 2016). For example, the Russian
energy company Novatek is building the enormous Yamal LNG plant, aiming at
producing more than 16,5 millions of tons of LNG annually (Oksana Kobzeva, “Russia’s
Yamal LNG is on track and on budget, says Novatek”, Reuters, September 5, 2016).
Meanwhile, China also develops off-shore oil and gas operations in the Russian economic exclusive through cooperation with Russian companies (Atle Staalesen, “China’s Oil Company Looks at Russian Arctic LNG”, The Independent Barents Observer, June 14, 2018) . In the same time, it builds a fleet of icebreakers in order to open the “Polar Silk Road”.
Thanks to the powerful attraction exerted by the Russian strategic combination of the Arctic oil and gas extraction operations with the development of the Northern Sea Route, its continental integration is felt throughout Asia. This attraction operates on public and private actors across energy, shipping, railroad and other business sectors. Some of the major investors are from China, India, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam (Jean-Michel Valantin, “The Warming Russian Arctic: Where Russian and Asian Strategies Interests Converge?”, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, November 23, 2016).
3. From the trade war to the war of the cold?
Toward a cold
trade war?
In other words, Mike Pompeo transposes in the Arctic region the tensions that are arising between the U.S. and China since the start of the trade war in March 2018, when the Trump administration imposed new tariffs on 50 to 60 billions worth of Chinese goods. It was followed by new tariffs on 200 billion dollars worth of Chinese goods in September 2018. And a new hike of 25% on Chinese goods could follow in May 2019 (Topic “US China Trade war”, The South China Morning Post).
The rise of neo-mercantilism
However, this transposition of the trade war in the Arctic is not “simply” about tariffs. It is also about the deployment of the Chinese commercial and potentially military sea power throughout the Arctic. From there, it also “flows” into the Atlantic American and European region. From a geopolitical point of view, this means that the U.S. are aware that China may try to compensate the effects of the U.S. trade war. And this attempt could take place through the growth of its trade relations with Europe through the Russian NSR.
Towards hot sea
/ cold sea theatre of operations?
In other words, the warming Arctic is expanding the confrontation between the U.S. and China to the Arctic. The comparison made by Secretary Pompeo between the Arctic region and the South China Sea is important.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PT57ghGn-Kw
Linking the South China Sea to the warming Arctic
In effect, it highlights that the U.S. could potentially expand their own sea power towards the Norway Sea and the Arctic Ocean. This may happen in a way that is similar to the installation of U.S. Sea Power in the South China Sea since the Second World War. As it happens, the ships of the Seventh Fleet are regularly claiming the U.S. right to navigate this very contested sea, especially between Japan and China (Jean-Michel Valantin, “Militarizing the Chinese New Silk Road part 1 – The South China Sea”, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, March 13, 2017).
This is nothing but an escalation from a “trade war” to a “cold war” in a warming region. It also means that U.S. and China power relationships are now linking the trade tariffs, the South China Sea and the Arctic region. This process opens a planetary landscape for numerous experiments in neo-mercantilism and hybrid forms of an escalating confrontation between the U.S. and China.
Featured image: President Donald J. Trump and President Xi Jinping at G20, July 8, 2017 – The White House [Public Domain]
Amazon’s director of robotics stated in April 2019 that it would be “at least 10 years” before warehouses become fully automated (Rachel England, Endgadget, 2 May 2019). Meanwhile, as we detail below, the Chinese production of industrial robots has been falling continuously since September 2018 (-16.4%) to March 2019 (-14%) and April 2019 -7.3% (China National Bureau of Statistics). What do these facts imply? Why does it matter? What are robots and why are they actually also crucial to the whole field of Artificial Intelligence (AI), including deep learning? What is at stake for major stakeholders, from the GAFAM to countries such as China, in strategic, political and geopolitical terms ? These are the questions that this article tackles and answers.
In the meantime, public deficits have become structural and entrenched (see e.g. Luca Ventura, “Percentage of Public Debt to GDP Around the World 2018“, Global Finance, 17 December 2018). The financial and economic crisis the sub-primes triggered in 2007 made these deficits even more acute (Ibid.).
As a result, the signals we had identified back in 2011, with the first edition of this article and of The Chronicles of Everstate, not only did not relent but, on the contrary, strengthened.
Back in 2011 and 2012, to explain there was something amiss and, that, yes, it was highly likely that the “liberal democracy” system would change was met with incredulity at best. Government officials, even in countries most advanced in terms of foresight, and corporate high level executives tended to be most skeptical.
Yet, things have changed, and are still changing.
It is everyday increasingly clear that something is happening at the very heart of our societies. The political systems in which we live are under stress. Changes are in the making.
The end of the modern nation-state?
Those very real events reflect a concern that has been underlined and debated in social sciences, notably international relations theory and political science, for a long while. It has most often been expressed as the impending demise of the modern nation-state and related system. Already in 1977, Hedley Bull in his masterful TheAnarchical Society was, among other, testing various hypotheses related to possible future evolutions of political systems.
Furthermore, the strength or fragility of the state generates a lot of interest (e.g. OECD, States of Fragility 2018, July 17, 2018; Paul Collier, A new approach to state fragility, Brookings, 11 January 2019). Indeed a growing fragility could lead to civil war, state collapse and generalised warfare.
The state is this political entity that is so difficult to define precisely and universally, and, yet, that we immediately recognize when we deal with it or when it is not there anymore. It is Hobbes’ Leviathan, and, without it,
“The life of man [is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
Thomas Hobbes
The type of state that is prevalent nowadays is described as modern (the modern state), centralized and rational. It is linked to the nation (the nation-state). The 1648 Treaty of Westphalia marks the birth of the modern state system.
The Ratification of the Treaty of Münster, 15 May 1648, byGerard Terborch, public domain
As human beings, we all live under one form or another of state. The state is the guarantor of security writ large, from the protection of foreign enemies to domestic peace to the foundation for material and immaterial security (Barrington Moore, Injustice: Social bases of Obedience and Revolt, London: Macmillan, 1978). Hence, fragile states could mean strife and death. Thus, the state’s potential disappearance, as well as its changes, primarily concern us all.
We must be able to envision its plausible futures.
The question is absolutely crucial because from the answer will depend how we shall deal with all other issues facing us, from climate change to geopolitics through food and energy security, among others.
It is even more important because, to these challenges that were obvious back in 2011, we must now add the paradigmatic changes that artificial intelligence and quantum information science will bring.
How to foresee the future(s) of the modern nation-state? The Chronicles of Everstate
What will be the future of the modern nation-state, this ideal-type form of polity into which most of us live nowadays, over the next twenty years?
Developing an adapted foresight methodology
Building upon existing methods and tools, we designed a tailor-made methodology to serve a quadruple purpose.
1- Scenarios as groundwork to explore the future of nation-states
First, the methodology had to lay the groundwork to explore the futures of modern nation-states over the next twenty years. This means we wanted to be able to use our work for all states, of course adapting it to the specificities of each one.
Considering the wide range of states, we needed to work with ideal-types. As a result, the methodology builds scenarios for a fictional state created to imagine and tell the story of potential futures for our – very real – states or countries. All the related articles and narratives were gathered under the name of “The Chronicles of Everstate”.
The narrative focuses on fundamental political dynamics, which lead to three scenarios.
We explore in detail a first scenario, “Mamominarch: Off with the State”, where the liberal logic is exacerbated and where the search for profits tends to take precedence over any other concern. We stress test the scenario with a set of catastrophes deemed likely, considering the selected variables.
We then turn to a second scenario, “Panglossy: Same Old, Same Old”, where a milder type of liberalism with laissez-faire rules.
The third scenario, more optimistic, was assessed as so unlikely at the time of writing, that we chose then not to develop it further before more interest emerged. If we had been building of a full set of scenarios for a corporate of public clients, and not for publication on the web, then we would had also developed this scenario and related sub-scenarios.
The current evolution, including in terms of beliefs, of transition of the international order, rise of Artificial Intelligence and Quantum Information System, while the threat of climate change does not relent, suggests that enlightened actors could now become interested in the development of this third scenario and offshoots.
2- Sense-Making for reality
Second, and in a related way, the Chronicles help illustrate the various political dynamics at work in the world, and how they could evolve – or not – in the future.
As they are presented as ideal-types, readers can use them to identify the dynamics at work in the real world. Using the Chronicles, s/he will then have a better idea of the highly likely impacts of the phenomena they observe and that inform their lives and activities.
3- Methodological objectives
Third, the Chronicles fulfils methodological objectives.
They are an experiment in constructing an extremely detailed scenario analysis and narrative. We used the experiment to improve the overall methodology of the Red (Team) Analysis Society. Meanwhile, we also tested the use of ego networks to develop a narrative.
Building upon a methodology evolving out of classical structural foresight analysis, we creatively yet scientifically adapted our design and tools to the issue at hand.
We used the software Gephi to create the model, then throughout the whole foresight analysis. In the meantime, we tested various visual tools and designs to enhance the delivery. For example, to illustrate the scenarios, we used the famous triptych by master Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights.
We adopted an imaginary time, Evertime (in short EVT). The timelines or sequences of events and the durations are, nonetheless, similar to what we experiment in real life. As real events unfold, the Chronicles thus give us elements to test and improve our understanding of time. It helps documenting if political science-based estimates were too short or too long, if dynamics took longer than expected, etc.
4- Strategic foresight analysis as an investment
Finally, the Chronicles seek to demonstrate the advantage to develop in-depth and serious scenarios, using necessary resources and grounding them in science.
The continuing pertinence of the Chronicles of Everstate over time shows indeed that scenarios may be relevant long after they have been written. When updates are necessary, then the existence of a strong underlying model allows for a – relatively – easy improvement.
As a result, actors can understand strategic foresight as an investment.
Who are the “clients”?
SF&W only exists if clients receive its products (Cynthia Grabo, Anticipating Surprise: Analysis for Strategic Warning, 2004). Thus, we had to identify who were the customers or clients for the Chronicles of Everstate, knowing they would be published on the web. Then we had to imagine the best possible form for the product considering those customers and web constraints.
The ideal point of view we took was that those clients and users were all those concerned with the modern nation-state and its changes as explained in detail in Meeting the Need to Foresee and Warn – Our Philosophy: primarily the contemporary rulers of the state, i.e. the nation and the citizens, the corporate sector, and the civil servants working for the state apparatus that supports the ruler, .
The format of the Chronicles of Everstate, which we are now re-publishing considering their relevance, is an answer to those various concerns. We aimed for relatively short pieces, each starting with a summary of the previous articles. We thus actually developed a serialised narrative. It can be read in order to focus on dynamics but also according to themes, using the title of the article. The Table of Contents is available here.
The first section presents the rationale behind the Chronicles of Everstate, why Everstate, and how to use the concept. It includes a series of articles that are methodological in focus and explain the nuts and bolts of the Chronicles.
Then, we tell the Chronicles of Everstate. All articles are at the same time a didactic practical application of the methodology and the development of the narratives of the various scenarios for the future.
However, even if we work with an ideal-type, events do not unfold in a vacuum but are dependent upon and constrained by a host of specific factors, most notably geography, the ecological milieu and history.
Thus, to make our foresight realistic, replicable, as well as adaptable to specific, existing countries, some criteria were identified and then specified: i.e. we give them values for Everstate. Those initial characteristics will also influence what happens.
Readers and users of the Chronicles of Everstate can imagine changing those criteria to test potential futures for countries of interest. They can apply real criteria to identify plausible futures for real countries.
For example, if geography is selected as a criteria, then the value may be: land in the tropical belt in South Asia, or land in Northern America. The size of the country must will also need to be specified, etc.
Between 14 and 20 March 2019, a historically powerful “bomb cyclone”, combined with snowmelt devastated Colorado and the Central United States, especially the Midwest “farmbelt” of Iowa and Nebraska, South Dakota and Kansas. Consequently, it triggered immense floods, which wrecked more than a million of acres (405000 hectares). These floods have immediate direct consequences, because they drown arable lands, destroy crops stocks, roads, houses, motorways, railroads, bridges, barns, cars, trucks, etc. (Humeyra Pamuk, P.J Huffstutter, Tom Polansek, “U.S farmers face devastation following Midwest floods”, Reuters, March 20, 2019.)
However dramatic, the situation is even more severe for soy producers. Because of the trade war Washington launched against China, Beijing has been hiking its town tariffs on U.S. soybeans (“Topic “US China Trade war”, The South China Morning Post). Consequently, U.S. soybean farmers had stockpiled their unsold stocks of soybeans in barns and houses, under tar, waiting for a small hike in prices before selling it. Unfortunately, the floods are turning these stocks into unsellable goods.
It is necessary to understand that the risk of amplifiying weather events is not “simply” about the U.S farm belt. Actually, as the status of the U.S. as an agricultural super power is potentially impacted, this “weather risk” is in fact a “globalization-related risk”, and may include multiple propagating consequences with worldwide geopolitical, economic and financial destabilization. As it happens, in times of U.S – China trade war mixed with strengthening climate change, conventional economic tensions are now combining in direct and indirect ways.
This combination triggers the state of the “long emergency” induced by climate change and the race to adaptation it drives (James Howard Kunstler, The Long emergency, surviving the converging catastrophes of the twenty-first century, 2005). Thus, these floods raise the question of the present and coming status of the Midwest agriculture in a warming and globalized world. In other words, the giant Midwest floods are human and agricultural catastrophe and a massive geopolitical risk.
A multi-layered disaster
Climate change and agricultural vulnerability
Beyond the mammoth scale of this historic flood, we must remember that this dramatic event is another occurrence of the multiplication of climate induced stress that affect the farm belt since the start of the 21st century.
These hurdles go hand in hand with new structural difficulties due to the long drought that impacts the Midwest, from the Great Plains to California, and the return of “dust bowls”, stemming from the aridity of soils created by the lack of rain water and hotter conditions (Scientific American, Melissa Gaskill, Climate Change Threatens Long Term Sustainability of Great plains, Nov 17, 2012).
During
the 1930s, the era of the Great Depression, dust bowls disrupted the whole
farming system and the network of rural and agricultural communities (The
Center for a New American Security, Katherine Kidder, GAO: Climate Change Puts U.S Agriculture at High Risk, May 3, 2013). The return of a “dust bowlification” forces
farmers to increase irrigation, and thus to intensify pressure on already
overused aquifers (Blain and Kytle, The Dust Bowl Returns,The New-York Times, 10
Feb 2014).
Complex
water stress is also emerging as a disruptive issue because of the convergence
of different kinds of competition over this crucial resource. For example, we
may have rivalry between States, for instance those sharing the Colorado River
(Fred Pearce, When the Rivers Run Dry, 2006).
The soybean production and the limits of adaptation
In the case of the Midwest soybean production, there are very important variables at play, varying from one region to another. These variables are the water holding capacity of soils, the technical and financial capabilities of the farmers to stock up reserves of water, and the categories of seeds they can buy. Thus, thanks to the experience accumulated over these last years while facing droughts, especially after the hard 2012 drought, soybean producers are, for the time being, able to adapt to increasingly hazardous weather patterns (Steven Wallander, Elizabeth Marshall, and Marcel Aillery, “Farmers Employ Strategies To Reduce Risk of Drought Damages”, U.S Department of Agriculture, June 5, 2017).
However, the March 2019 floods seem to have largely exceeded the shock absorption and resiliency of the region.
If
droughts and floods are a recurrent feature of the U.S. climate history, their
intensification and combination with the loss of snow packs, diminished stream
flows, loss of topsoil moisture, vegetation dryness, and lack of precipitation
in the context of shifting climate parameters, is congruent with the effects of
climate change.
Why are U.S. floods a geopolitical issue?
Midwest: the long decline ?
The Midwest is one of the most important agricultural regions in the world. It produces notably corn and soybeans. The U.S soybean production represents 40% of the world exports. However, its global share was 60% in 2000. It then lost huge swaths of the world market to Brazil, which expanded its cultivated surfaces during the same period (David Oppedhal, “Midwest’s ties to the global economy”, The Federal Reserve of Chicago,Chicago Fed Letter n°393, 2018) Those U.S crops are primarily used for ethanol production and animal food, especially pork and chicken.
The soybean war …
The damages stemming from the March 2019 floods are so important because of the loss of stocks. Those have been accumulated since 2018, when the effects of the trade war launched against China led Beijing to heighten its own tariff barriers against U.S soybeans, while lowering them in favour of the Brazilian production (Jean-Michel Valantin, “The US Economy, Between the Climate Hammer and the Trade war Anvil – The US Soybean Crop case”, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, October 8, 2018).
In other words, the floods have destroyed the unsold part of the 2018 crops, while endangering the 2019 crops. They also destroyed the potential financial capital the stocks could have been for the farmers. And thus, the floods neutered the taxes potential the sell of the 2018 stocks would have represented for the public sector and thus for the maintenance of infrastructures (Irwin Redlener, “The deadly cost of failing infrastructure in historic Midwest floods”, The Hill, 5 April 2019).
Beyond this first layer of destruction, this loss of production lowers the ability of the U.S. agriculture to reach world markets, and thus reduces the American role in the production of manufactured food. As it happens, processing food is a giant market, because it is the growing model of alimentation in cities, knowing that their size and number is also growing (Karen Perry Stillerman, “The Midwest Food system is failing. Here is why”, Union of Concerned Scientists, July 17, 2019). This rise of the processed food market for cities is due to the rapid and mammoth rural exodus in Asia, and especially in China. It triggers a rapid and immense growth of urban populations and of their needs. For example, the Chinese have to absorb a 250 million strong rural population between 2015 and 2025 (Chris Weller, “Here’s China’s genius plan to move 250 millions people from farms to cities”, Business Insider, 5 August 2015).
Thus, the Midwest floods are hampering the role of the U.S. Midwest in the alimentary dimension of the massive Asian social transformation. The same dynamic is also boosting the Brazilian position on the same market, because the Chinese market is absorbing a greater share of the Brazilian production (Valantin, ibid). This situation can only bolster the project of president Bolsonaro in keeping on destroying a larger share of the Amazonian forest, in order to convert it into farmland.
This combination of agricultural, commercial and financial loss is aggravating the transport infrastructure situation of the Midwest. The river, railways and road heavy bulk transport are in a very bad shape, because of 30 years of insufficient management and investments. The floods are worsening the state of the vital infrastructures that connect the Midwest farmers to the world markets (David Hoppelman, ibid).
Thus, the floods are literally insulating the Midwest, putting in a state of potential “forced deglobalization”, or, to the vey least, on the road to become a world agricultural periphery.
Because of the intensification of climate change, this risk is heightening. As it happens, the NOAA and the U.S Weather service are predicting a multiplication of these kinds of events during the 2019 spring (Brian Donegan, “More historic, widespread flooding expected this spring in central U.S, NOAA says”, The Weather Channel, Mach 21, 2019). In the same time, the climate vulnerability of the Midwest is worsening, due to the multiplication of floods, droughts, tempests, “bomb cyclones”, and wildfires (U.S Environmental Protection Agency, “Climate Impacts on Agriculture and Food Supply”, 6 October 2016).
In other words, because of the giant floods of March 2019, the very role of the U.S agriculture in the very fabric of globalization and of the U.S economy is at risk. The ruin of thousands of farmers stemming from the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars of uninsured crops could very well aggravate this process. And it may very well be a harbinger of the things to come, if the region does not find ways to adapt.
Featured image: Areas surrounding Offutt Air Force Base stand affected by flood waters March 17, 2019. An increase in water levels of surrounding rivers and waterways caused by record-setting snowfall over the winter in addition to a large drop in air pressure caused widespread flooding across the state of Nebraska. (U.S. Air Force photo by TSgt. Rachelle Blake) – [Public Domain]
Smart farming, the combination of agriculture, artificial intelligence (AI) and the internet of things (IoT), will help tackle the various challenges of food security, and usher the happenstance of a new world. It will also change what international food security means.
We present here some of the features of the new “international smart food security”. What follows is an open access extract from our premium article “Artificial Intelligence, the Internet of Things and the Future of Agriculture: Smart Agriculture Security?” part (1) and part (2).
Smart agriculture, new dangers
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has foreseen the various dangers smart agriculture faces. Thus, it supported the publication of the report Threats to Precision Agriculture (2018 Public-Private Analytic Exchange Program, Oct 2018). Interestingly, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) – i.e. the top official body for the U.S. Intelligence Community(1) – also supported the report. This double involvement corresponds to two developments for the future.
Smart Agriculture, through its “smartness”, will face a whole new range of threats. The first type belongs to domestic security – hence the involvement of DHS. It is concerned with attacks that may be qualified of criminal, as well as with technological problems and unintentional fragilities. The second type of threats belongs to the world of international politics. Actually, we must also consider a third type of threats, as possibly resulting from climate change.
Practically, the three types of threats may converge. For example, international actors may use – or disguise as – domestic criminals for their design. Criminals and international adversaries – or enemies – may take advantage of the impact of climate change on smart agriculture. They may also seek to intensify such possible adverse effects.
On the front-line
Defence for smart agriculture
Feeding one’s people is a crucial part of the security that political authorities have to deliver. We explained in detail the corresponding security-related political processes and provided a political science bibliography in The Chronicles of Everstate, notably “Rising Discontent” and “Seeking Security“. The quality of the food delivered also impacts the “ruled”. Thus, both food and food production, henceforth agriculture, are crucial components of power in an international setting, and a stake for national interest.
Hence, food and agriculture may also, in case of war, become deliberately targeted by enemies. As a result, defence, as the U.S. very well understood when the ODNI supported the report Threats to Precision Agriculture, needs to fully incorporate smart agriculture. The smartness of the agriculture creates new vulnerabilities. It also has the potential to enhance power, as we shall see below. Thus, the very smartness of the agriculture increases the need to include smart farming within a proper defence policy and strategy. Conversely, attacks in case of war may also consider targeting smart agriculture.
Elements of international smart agriculture security
First and obviously, it will be crucial to ensure smart agriculture security while also thinking that foreign malevolent actors can carry out the attacks. Moreover, it will be necessary to make sure that components of smart agriculture bought abroad do not introduce vulnerabilities.
Meanwhile, as also highlighted in the DHS report, we need to pay attention to possible “competitive” foreign actions. Indeed, these could impact relative power placement. We can imagine competitors obtaining farming data or crops data to take various types of market advantage. Worse, we may also imagine competitors taking aggressive actions to threaten the integrity of crops, again for international market advantage.
The smartness of agriculture as power
Furthermore, the very smartness of the agriculture will also become an element of competition and power. “Smartness” will be declined along all the drivers of artificial intelligence (AI), namely: algorithms, big data, computing power, quantum information science, sensors and actuators, and finally usages (seeArtificial Intelligence – Forces, Drivers and Stakes). For example, we can apply here what we explained for high power computing in more general terms, while giving examples for defence (see Artificial Intelligence, Computing Power and Geopolitics – 2).
Finally, those actors who will be best able to master with excellency each and every driver of AI within the smart agriculture domain will be at the top of the international relative power distribution for food security. Meanwhile, they will see their overall international power ranking enhanced in other domains, through AI capillarity.
Then, food is a crucial component of power. Thus, position in terms of international smart food security will impact the international ranking and influence of actors. It will affect their potential strength or, on the contrary, weakness.
As a result smart agriculture is many times vital to national interest. Mastery of and excellency in smart agriculture may well be crucial keys of the future international order.
(1)“The Director of National Intelligence serves as the head of the U.S. Intelligence Community”. S/he oversees and directs “the implementation of the National Intelligence Program”. S/he acts “as the principal advisor to the President, the National Security Council, and the Homeland Security Council for intelligence matters related to national security”. (ODNI website – “Who we are“)
Featured image: Marine Corps – 160218-M-BF136-001.jpg by: Jennifer Gonzalez [public Domain]
However, ethics cannot be detached from the reality and practicality of AI. Both must feed into each other. Therefore, we need to look at the way AI is or will be very concretely used, beyond an ill-defined “black box AI”. We need to understand its drivers. We need to understand the stakes (Artificial Intelligence – Forces, Drivers and Stakes). And we need to assess the impacts AI will have on governance, management, security and international relations.
In this article, we focus upon the way various actors include AI in farming and thus envision and develop the future of agriculture, indeed what is called “smart agriculture”. We then assess major impacts and consequences. We look at the best way to develop and integrate AI into real life activities. Meanwhile, we assess the impact of smart agriculture not only on agriculture security, but also on governance and geopolitics.
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