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Trump and Putin are heading to Alaska this Friday for a summit to end the war in Ukraine, but both leaders will have the price of oil very much on their minds, says Eurasia Group's Gregory Brew in the first episode of The Debrief.
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- Trump and Putin to meet in Alaska to discuss Ukraine ›
- In Alaska, the clock favors Putin - GZERO Media ›
Collage of Ian Bremmer, Putin, and Trump.
Moose and I are trading Manhattan’s muggy sidewalks for Nantucket sand, but first, one more mailbag. Since this is the last newsletter you’ll get from me until after Labor Day, we’ve got an extra-long edition to tide you over. Thanks to those who sent in so many smart and snarky questions, to all of you for reading, and I’ll see you fully energized in September.
What recourse does the Supreme Court have against a president who doesn't follow the rule of law?
Ultimately, the Court’s leverage lies with its own legitimacy in the eyes of the American public. President Donald Trump has thus far respected its rulings because outright defiance would risk a backlash that could damage his political standing. That said, the Court has also been selective about the cases it’s taken, partly to avoid confrontations with the executive it might struggle to enforce that would expose the limits of its power. The institution is being challenged; even if for now its authority is holding. It’s a mistake to assume that will necessarily last forever.
The Trump administration is incredibly pro-Israel, both in terms of sending weapons to Israel for offensive operations throughout the Middle East as well as arresting pro-Palestinian protesters on US college campuses (and also going after the colleges themselves). How does one reconcile this position with the administration's support for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and other far-right parties in Europe and elsewhere that hold very strong antisemitic views?
There’s no contradiction: pro-Israel policy, anti-Palestine campus crackdowns, and support for far-right parties all serve the same worldview – nationalist, populist, anti-globalist, anti-immigration – rather than any coherent, principled stance against antisemitism. The Trump administration’s support for the AfD, France’s National Rally, and other European ultranationalists – all of which praise Israel as a model “ethnostate” despite their persistent antisemitism – was driven less by President Trump himself than by Elon Musk (who’s now out) and Vice President JD Vance (who has now stepped back from that policy push). Trump personally likes leaders like Hungary’s Viktor Orban, but that’s less about shared ideology than the fact that Trump likes people who profess their love for him.
The question is not why Trump is so strongly pro-Israel, but rather, why the United States is. After all, Trump may be even more pro-Israel than Joe Biden, but compared to the rest of the world, both presidents are outliers in terms of their support for the Jewish state. Some of that comes down to the depth of intelligence-sharing and military coordination between the two countries. Some is about genuinely shared geostrategic interests and common enemies in the region. Some is about the strength of the political lobby in the US. And some used to be about Israel’s status as the only strong democracy in the Middle East (Gaza and the West Bank notwithstanding), though that’s now less true of Israel and less important to American leaders.
With the broken promises of "no new wars," increased budget deficits, and now the swirling conspiracies around the Epstein files, can Trump hold together a cohesive base to maintain the very slim majorities they hold in Congress come midterms?
I would not call “no new wars” a broken promise. True, Trump has failed to end the war in Ukraine (so far at least), but he has clearly tried. He’s had moderate success helping to broker truces in the India-Pakistan, Thailand-Cambodia, and Rwanda-DRC conflicts. He does get a big zero on Gaza, having helped make matters worse. It’s unclear he (unlike Elon, who was not on the ballot) credibly promised to end budget deficits; his base cares less about this than ending the two-tiered economic and justice system – and on that front, they have grounds to be angry both about the tax breaks for the rich in the “big beautiful bill” and the lies and misdirection about Jeffrey Epstein. I suspect that undermines his (very resilient) support with the base somewhat, but it might get washed out by a kept promise that was key to getting him elected in 2024: closing the southern border and deporting illegal aliens. At the end of the day, though, a lot will come down to how the economy is doing by then.
Is it too early to even think about a Vance presidency?
It’s too early, especially given how much has already happened – and how fast things have changed – in the first six months of the Trump-Vance administration. Folks need to pace themselves; this is a marathon, not a sprint. Trump has no incentive to crown a successor and weaken his own power while he’s still center stage. Expect him to keep everyone guessing until the very last minute (and maybe even later).
Global investors are increasingly de-risking from US assets and reducing their US dollar exposure. As the US moves away from the rules-based order, who (China, the EU) or what (gold, oil, cryptocurrencies) can fill the vacuum?
There’s still no alternative to King Dollar. Yes, more investors are trimming their outsized holdings of historically overvalued USD assets and looking for alternatives to hedge against political shock and weaponization risk. In the long term, China’s economic heft and global lead in some of the most important frontier technologies make the yuan a leading contender (yes, despite its demographic collapse). But a true substitute has to offer scale, liquidity, open capital markets, and trustworthy national institutions. Washington’s self-inflicted wounds may erode the greenback’s appeal, but they don’t make the RMB – with its capital controls and legal opacity – any more suitable to be a reserve asset. Nor do they allow Europe’s rule of law, deep markets, and capital openness to make up for the persistent lack of a true fiscal, financial, and political union. Gold and oil remain commodities, not currencies; they can’t grease modern finance. And crypto is still far too volatile (and, in the case of dollar-pegged stablecoins, paradoxically reinforces greenback dominance).
The more realistic future is a messier, more multipolar system where central banks, institutional investors, and corporations still keep most of their dry powder in dollars yet diversify more into euros, yuan, bullion, and digital tokens. Fragmentation means higher transaction costs and less automatic US leverage, but until someone marries China-style scale with Swiss-style trust, the dollar remains first among unequals – just less overwhelmingly so.
If critical minerals are necessary for energy security and warfighting, how can the US diversify supply chains within a credible timeframe?
Trump’s executive order to fast-track permitting and expand financing for mining projects is useful, as is the Pentagon’s direct equity investment in MP Materials. But it’s going to take a lot of money and several years – I’d say no fewer than five – of coordinated and consistent policy support to build out not just production capacity but refining and processing ecosystems, especially for defense-critical heavy rare earths. Putting aside the technical hurdles, fiscal constraints, and permitting bottlenecks, there’s presently no strategy to make Western-led projects commercially viable against a non-market competitor whose dominance not only spans upstream and midstream production but also extends to pricing, logistics, and trading infrastructure, resulting in both direct supply pressure and indirect influence over global pricing.
Is the fight against climate change dead? What will it take for it to return to the political agenda?
No, because clean energy technologies are getting cheaper and being deployed at an unprecedented speed and scale, driven not by woke ideology or government regulation but by scientific breakthroughs and market forces. To be sure, the global transition is not being led by the United States, but it’s also not being particularly held back by it. That deep-red Texas leads the US (and China and India lead the world) in renewable deployment is a case in point: the fight against climate change will be won by economic self-interest and tech ingenuity, not Greta tweets and political diktat.
Do you think the US will ever leave NATO altogether?
Ever? Sure, since it’s easy to see nation-states no longer being the principal geopolitical actors a generation or two from now. But probably not in the coming, say, 5-10 years. Trump may once again threaten to pull out of the alliance (both for domestic politics and to encourage fairer burden-sharing), but even before taking office in January he had already admitted to changing his mind about NATO being obsolete.
What is preventing Secretary of State Rubio and President Trump from insisting that Israel stop impeding the free flow of humanitarian aid (including food) into Gaza?
They don’t consider the Palestinians strategically relevant and/or worthy of concern (also see: Europe). They certainly have more political leeway and, therefore, more leverage to pressure Israel with than the Biden administration did (and than the Europeans). But they just don’t care (not enough and not yet, at least).
Are we ever going to witness the United States of Europe?
If the pandemic, climate change, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and America’s isolationist turn haven’t done the trick, I have a hard time imagining what will. Each crisis nudges the bloc toward more coordination and incremental integration (banking union, joint vaccine procurement, a modest pandemic recovery fund), but the same shocks also fuel populist backlash against ceding another inch of sovereignty. Add the centrifugal pull of NATO for security, national capitals for taxation, and Berlin-Paris bargaining for everything in between, and the path to a true federation keeps receding. That reality means Europe will keep punching below its collective weight – let alone the US and China’s.
Do you think the UK should consider rejoining the EU?
Brexit dented growth and diminished Britain’s bargaining power vis-à-vis great powers, but re-entry is a practical, political, and diplomatic slog with diminishing returns. Having spent years extricating the UK, Europeans are once burned, twice shy; even if they were to reopen the wound, good luck getting Brussels to agree to London’s old rebates and opt-outs. At home, any government would have to sell free movement, loss of sovereignty, and a meaningful budget contribution to voters who were told they’d “taken back control.” Plus, the world has changed since 2016. Relinquishing veto power to 27 other capitals in a G-Zero era where agility and autonomy are key strategic assets risks trading one set of constraints for another. The smarter play is to stitch together flexible partnerships with the EU – from security to green tech – while keeping a free hand on the steering wheel.
If the US steps away from the Ukraine/Russia negotiations, do you think Europeans will step up and take a leading role in defending Ukraine?
They are already taking the lead. Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, the combined support for Ukraine (financial, military, and humanitarian) from European countries has exceeded US contributions by over $45 billion – and that’s not including the over $110 billion in European aid commitments still to be allocated plus new funding to scale the continent’s own defense industry so the flow keeps growing.
Considering Russia's historical proficiency in winter warfare and its ability to exhaust enemy resources ahead of spring offensives, why have they been unable to decisively overwhelm Ukrainian forces during the past several winters of the ongoing conflict?
Endemic corruption sapping resources and logistics, overconfident and incompetent military leaders squandering Russian materiel and manpower superiority, and poorly led conscripts with low morale, fighting against a more motivated and savvy Ukrainian force bolstered by strong Western support and impressive homegrown tech capabilities.
Is there hope for Russia after Vladimir Putin?
The analyst in me doesn’t expect a dramatic shift at the Kremlin if Vladimir Vladimirovich were to suddenly croak tomorrow. His successor is far less likely to be a liberalizing democrat than another authoritarian, strongly anti-Western nationalist who’d behave even more risk-aversely than Putin, needing the continuous support of the Russian military, intelligence, and security establishment – the siloviki – to stay in power.
Do you think "traditional" news providers such as the FT, NYT, etc. will become stronger as people look for more credible sources of information in the age of increasing disinformation on social media? Or is this wishful thinking?
I’m skeptical that traditional media as a whole can become stronger in an era of hyper-polarized audiences, an ever-more-fragmented information ecosystem, declining ad revenue, and business models that depend on paywalls. Disinformation thrives not because people actively seek out lies, but because they consume news the way they consume everything else online: passively, emotionally, algorithmically, and in soundbites. The key challenge isn’t trust, it’s attention. The NYT and the FT can’t win a game that’s optimized for engagement without compromising the very accuracy and credibility that make them valuable. Though I do think select sources that are trusted and have authentic voices will become increasingly essential to a narrow slice of the public willing to pay for the “credibility premium” (whether in money or attention). I hope that’s what GZERO Media is for most of you.
What are we missing on the horizon that we should pay more attention to behind all the current dust?
Artificial intelligence transforming our economies, societies, global security, and geopolitics in a matter of years. Compared to the magnitude and speed of change we’re used to, we’re in for a wild ride.
Do you have a p(doom) number for AI? What's your take on the value of making p(doom) predictions?
My distribution of possible AI outcomes currently looks like a barbell. I think either we blow ourselves up in the next 10-20 years or we end up with a radically better quality of life, extremely high economic growth and scientific progress, and even much longer lifespans. But I can’t tell yet which tail scenario is more likely, making my p(doom) – the probability of existentially catastrophic outcomes as a result of AI – incredibly uncertain. I need to see more to update decisively one way or the other. As the technology advances, these estimates will become increasingly important.
Have you noticed any growing suspicion abroad due to your nationality? Are you being threatened or intimidated by anyone here at home because of your opinions?
I’ve noticed a rise in anti-American sentiment more generally, on the back of the belief that the United States is no longer as reliable a partner and ally (fact-check: true). I think some people do presume that as an American you must hold a certain worldview (e.g., Russia and China always bad, US always good, etc. etc.), which is as ridiculous and offensive as thinking you would do that as a white or black person. But I have thankfully never been threatened or intimidated, neither at home nor abroad, other than on social media – which is a feature, not a bug, of these platforms.
Are you giving any thought to moving to a different country, and if so, where would you consider going?
Zero. I love New York City. And unlike mayoral candidate and former governor Andrew Cuomo, I can’t imagine leaving under any circumstances.
A woman walks past the peace wall that separates neighborhoods of Belfast, United Kingdom, on September 30, 2019.
Twenty years ago, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) agreed to lay down its weapons and end the armed campaign to achieve a united Ireland free of British rule. The move came 11 years after an initial ceasefire in Northern Ireland, and seven years after the Good Friday Agreement that brought an end to the Troubles, a decades-long conflict between Irish nationalists and supporters of the union with Great Britain, which killed roughly 3,600 people.
“Dozens, if not hundreds, of people are alive today that perhaps wouldn’t be if this violence had continued,” former US special envoy to Northern Ireland Mitchell Reiss told GZERO.
As other militant groups around the world explore or proceed with disarmament – such as the Kurdish PKK in Turkey or, perhaps one day, Hezbollah in Lebanon – the peace that has held in Northern Ireland ever since the IRA’s disarmament shows what can be achieved if paramilitary groups drop their weapons. However, it also offers a cautionary tale: peace is one thing, but harmony is another.
So how has Northern Ireland fared over the past two decades?
First, the good news. The bloodshed has stopped, even as the PIRA didn’t achieve its goal of uniting the island of Ireland – Northern Ireland remains part of the United Kingdom. While there are regular displays of pride by nationalists, and unionists alike, these events are relatively peaceful. Gone are the car bombings, killings, and abductions that ignited fear across the country throughout the 1970s and 1980s.
What’s happened to the IRA? The Provisional IRA has officially demilitarized and pledged to pursue its aims peacefully, with the help of nationalist political parties like Sinn Fein.
While police believe parts of the armed grouping still exist, their influence, along with that of several other offshoot nationalist paramilitary groups, is limited. They may oppose the “promise of the Good Friday Agreement,” says Reiss, but “the good news is that they are generally small in number. They are marginalized.”
What the disarmament hasn’t achieved. First, Northern Irish society remains deeply divided. If you take a walk down the Shankhill Road in Belfast, you’ll see shopfronts lined with unionist memorabilia and odes to the late Queen. Meanwhile Falls Road, only a few hundred yards away, is still festooned with the Irish tricolor and monuments to slain nationalist fighters. Police still shut off access between the two roads at night as a precaution.
Secondly, while the IRA put down its weapons, the opposing Protestant paramilitary groups – like Ulster Defence Association and the Ulster Volunteer Force – never had to do the same.. Though their influence isn’t as widespread as it was during the height of the Troubles, they continue to function as criminal gangs, exerting a corrosive effect of their own on Northern Irish society.
“For the last eight years, I’ve been talking to these [Protestant paramilitaries],” says Reiss “trying to see if we can achieve the same goal with them that we did with the IRA, that they could put weapons beyond use and commit to a purely political and peaceful way forward.”
Lastly there’s the continued dysfunction of the Northern Irish government. Under the GFA, there has to be a power-sharing agreement between the nationalists and unionists for the Northern Irish Assembly to function. However, the two sides have regularly failed to form a government, with impasses often lasting years.
None of this changes the significance of the achievement. If the number of people killed during the Troubles was projected proportionally onto the United States, the numbers would be akin to the American Civil War, notes Reiss, underlining the hostilities between the nationalist and unionist factions of Northern Ireland, and thus the challenge in achieving peace.
“Is it better than it was? Absolutely. Is progress continuing to be made? Absolutely. Do we need to do more? Absolutely,” says Reiss. “But Northern Ireland is fundamentally transformed from the way it was 20 years ago.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with Head of the Federal Service for Financial Monitoring Yury Chikhanchin at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, on July 8, 2025.
At first glance, Russia has coped well under the weight of Ukraine-related Western sanctions. In 2024, its economy grew at a faster rate than every G7 country. Though Europe has gone almost entirely cold turkey on Russian oil and gas supplies, thirst for these resources in China and India, quenched by a shadow tanker fleet that helps evade those sanctions, has kept Russia’s energy trade stable.
Longer term, climate change can help. Warming temperatures will open new Russian lands to farming and boost its agricultural output. They will open new sea routes that lower Russia’s cost of commerce and bring revenue from transit fees imposed on others. Perhaps most importantly, the Kremlin has long claimed it can transition from its currently heavy reliance on oil and gas exports to deeper investment in wind, hydro, geothermal, biomass, hydrogen, and solar energy.
But the realities of Russia’s future are darkening.
Its economy has become addicted to war in Ukraine. Its growth over the past two years was fueled mainly by the tidal wave of military spending needed to eke out modest gains in what’s become a war of attrition. Military and security spending now make up about 40% of Russia’s total government expenditure. This spending surge is sending inflation into overdrive, forcing Russia’s central bank to raise interest rates to a record 21%, raising borrowing costs for businesses and slowing future investment. Manufacturing has slowed and ordinary Russians aren’t spending.
None of this will persuade President Vladimir Putin to cut a deal with Ukraine – and that’s Russia’s bigger problem. Current evidence suggests Putin intends to keep doubling down on a war that leaves a supposed great military power to take 1,000 casualties per day to make tentative gains of a few kilometers, to kill Ukrainian civilians, and to laud slow advances on individual towns and villages in a war that’s already dragged on for three years and four months.
In addition, while China and India remain eager to buy the energy Russia pumps out of the ground, they know the loss of Moscow’s best customers in Europe allows them to buy the product at a below-market price. China, with an economy nearly nine times larger than Russia’s, has done remarkably little to help Putin win his war. India has shifted large volumes of arms purchases from Russia to the United States. The Kremlin’s trade problem is compounded by the reality that even ending the war with Ukraine won’t bring mistrustful Europeans to return to their former volumes of trade with Russia.
But Russia’s biggest problems are found inside its borders. Longtime reliance on the revenue from exports of oil, gas, metals, and minerals has allowed Russia to avoid large-scale investment in the digital-age industries needed for an innovative 21st-century economy. The most recent credible measure of this comes from the Global Innovation Index 2024, produced by the World Intellectual Property Organization, a UN agency. According to the report, which measures entrepreneurship and innovation-driven growth and development across 133 countries, Russia ranks 59th in the world, behind Mauritius, Georgia, and North Macedonia.
This problem probably has many sources – an economy dominated by well-connected elites who don’t need innovation to remain wealthy, a lack of entrepreneurial tradition, and increased investment focus on a war Russia isn’t winning. But the larger challenge facing Russia is the depletion of the generation of young people that might help solve these problems. A report last month from the Center for Strategic and International Studies found “250,000 Russian soldiers have died in Ukraine, with over 950,000 total Russian casualties.” That’s a tremendous blow for Russia’s potentially most productive generation, with no end of the sacrifice in sight. Here’s another: aware of both Russia’s long-term economic problems and the much more urgent problem of avoiding war, nearly one million Russians have fled the country in search of better opportunities since the earliest days of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Russia, a resource-rich country with 11 time zones and an economy about half the size of California’s, still depends almost entirely for its great-power claims on its stockpile of nuclear weapons, the world’s largest. But these are weapons that can only be used at high risk of self-annihilation, and Russia’s sophisticated arsenal of cyber-weapons is useful only for undermining other countries.
Worst of all, it’s hard to imagine any Kremlin change of direction toward creating a more dynamic and innovative Russia anytime soon. The war in Ukraine grinds on. For now, Putin and his enablers seem content to define Russia’s “greatness” solely by its ability to disrupt and punish others.
Demonstration of AI innovation at the AI for Good Summit in Geneva, Switzerland, on July 7, 2025.
Since ChatGPT burst onto the scene in late 2022, it’s been nearly impossible to attend a global conference — from Davos to Delhi — without encountering a slew of panels and keynote speeches on artificial intelligence. Will AI make our lives easier, or will it destroy humanity? Can it be a force for good? Can AI be regulated without stifling innovation?
At the ripe old age of eight, the AI for Good Summit is now a veteran voice in this rapidly-evolving dialogue. It kicks off today in Geneva, Switzerland, for what promises to be its most ambitious edition yet.
Launched in 2017 by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the gathering typically features conversations on AI safety, access, and governance, but also serves as a “show and tell” moment for innovators spotlighting the latest in robotics, autonomous vehicles, and AI-based tools to combat climate change.
This year, AI for Good is being held at the massive Palexpo, Geneva’s largest convention center, with thousands expected to attend over four days. GZERO is there all week for our Global Stage series, produced in partnership with Microsoft, to help you understand what this summit is and why it’s such a hot ticket (as far as international conferences go).
What is ITU, and why does it host AI for Good? The ITU, founded in 1865, is the UN’s agency for communication technologies. In fact, it was formed 160 years ago as the International Telegraph Union, just as that electronic correspondence method was changing how messages spread across the world. ITU is perhaps best known for establishing global telecom standards, but it’s been playing a growing role in helping more people access the Internet and all the benefits that can bring.
ITU launched “AI for Good” as a platform to connect technology developers and innovators with organizations working on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, which seek to bring more people into health and socioeconomic stability by eradicating key challenges like extreme poverty, hunger, and gender inequality.
“We’ve been very consistent and true to our original mission,” the ITU’s Frederic Werner, a summit co-founder, told GZERO. “It was identifying practical applications of AI to solve global challenges and to foster partnerships to make that happen for global impact.”
What happens this week? Expect lots of discussion about the future of jobs and how agentic AI – meaning AI that is autonomously self-improving – could impact companies and the workforce. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff will address participants on that theme, and Black Eyed Peas frontman will.i.am, now an ITU ambassador, will speak about the importance of training and educating people to work effectively with AI.
Throughout the Palexpo, startup founders and established companies alike will be sharing their creations — like interactive robots and flying cars (more like drones that can carry people, but cool nonetheless). The summit also highlights AI youth initiatives and inventions from around the world.
There will also be a day devoted to policy and regulatory frameworks surrounding AI, a speech from Estonia’s President Alar Karis, and a presentation of suggested standards for AI encompassing everything from healthcare applications to the risks of AI-generated misinformation.
Why does the summit matter right now? For starters, the global “digital divide” remains vast. An estimated 2.6 billion people, a third of the world’s population, still lack Internet connectivity altogether. And nearly 150 years after Thomas Edison introduced the incandescent light bulb, 700 million people still don’t have the electricity to power one. Most are in the Global South.
As more and more industries adopt and deploy AI, the technology could contribute as much as $20 trillion to the global economy through 2030, driving as much as 3.5% of the world’s GDP by then. But the largest and most developed economies, primarily the US and China, stand to gain the most right now, while poorer countries fall further behind.
Conversations in Geneva this week are confronting that concern, calling for “cooperation” and greater global inclusion in the AI economy. In today’s deeply fragmented geopolitical reality, that may be much further in the distance than a self-flying passenger drone.
See GZERO’s complete interview with AI for Good co-founder Frederic Werner here.
American President Donald Trump's X Page is seen displayed on a smartphone with a Tiktok logo in the background
In August 1991, a handful of high-ranking Soviet officials launched a military coup to halt what they believed (correctly) was the steady disintegration of the Soviet Union. Their first step was to seize control of the flow of information across the USSR by ordering state television to begin broadcasting a Bolshoi Theatre production of Swan Lake on a continuous loop until further notice. (Click that link for some prehistoric GZERO coverage of that event.)
Even in the decade that followed the Cold War’s end, citizens of both authoritarian states and democracies had far fewer sources of reliable information than today about what was happening in their communities, across their countries and around the world.
Earlier this month, the Reuters Institute published its 14th annual Digital News Report, which Reuters claims is the “most comprehensive study of news consumption worldwide.” Its findings detail just how fundamentally different today’s media landscape has become. Here are some key takeaways that help us understand how and where people get their information and ideas about what’s happening today:
- “News use across online platforms continues to fragment.”
- “Engagement with traditional media sources such as TV, print, and news websites continues to fall, while dependence on social media, video platforms, and online aggregators grows. This is particularly the case in the United States.”
- “The proportion accessing news via social media and video networks in the United States (54%) is sharply up – overtaking both TV news (50%) and news websites/apps (48%) for the first time.”
- “Around a third of our global sample use Facebook (36%) and YouTube (30%) for news each week. Instagram (19%) and WhatsApp (19%) are used by around a fifth, while TikTok (16%) remains ahead of X at 12%.”
- Personalities and influencers are, in some countries, playing a significant role in shaping public debates.
- There’s no reason to expect these trends won’t continue indefinitely.
There’s much more in the Reuters report, but today let’s focus on a few political implications of the points above.
In the years since social media and online influencers began shaping our perception of reality, we’ve seen strong anti-establishment political trends. Think Brexit, the election of charismatic political outsiders (like Donald Trump), and a move away from long-entrenched political establishments in dozens of countries.
Social media algorithms create “filter bubbles” as algorithms feed us steady supplies of what they’ve learned we like at the expense of new information and ideas that make us question what we believe. That trend helps explain the worsening polarization we see in the United States and many European countries.
That problem is compounded by the increasing prevalence in social media feeds of AI bots, which can generate heavy volumes of false information, distorting our sense of reality every day and in real time.
All these trends will make politics, particularly in democracies, much less predictable over time as elections swing outcomes between competing ideologies.
As a source of news and insight, social media has brought billions of people directly into the political lives of their countries in ways unimaginable a generation ago. They’ll continue to play a positive role in helping news consumers and voters learn more and share their views. But the unreliability of so many social media information sources — and the political volatility it increasingly generates — create problems that will only become more complex as technologies change.
And this problem is intensifying at a time when more of the big threats facing governments extend across borders — the eruption of more regional wars, climate change fallout, management of refugee flows, and governance of artificial intelligence. Big ideological swings following elections will make long-term multinational cooperation much more complicated.
Tell us what you think. How should our elected leaders, media sources, and all of us news consumers respond to these challenges? Let us know here.