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Responsible AI for a digital world
How do we ensure AI is trustworthy in an era of rapid technological change?
Baroness Joanna Shields, Executive Chair of the Responsible AI Future Foundation, says it starts with principles of responsible AI and a commitment to ethical development.
Shields explains that her foundation’s work “is about empowering everyone equally and enabling others to level up and be part of this revolution,” highlighting its focus on guiding the ethical development and use of AI.
She emphasizes the critical importance of information integrity, warning that AI systems trained on social media data risk amplifying conspiracy theories and divisive content. Reflecting on her experience at Meta, Shields notes, “Models that are trained with social media data… will further embed and create communities where people are… exposed to damaging content,” underscoring the need for transparency and awareness in AI-generated information.
Shields shared these insights at the 2025 Abu Dhabi Global AI Summit panel “Bringing AI Technology, Trust, and Talent to the World,” part of GZERO Media’s Global Stage series in partnership with Microsoft, which brings together global leaders to discuss the geopolitical and technological trends shaping our world.
Agentic AI: How it could reshape identity and politics
As AI begins to understand us better than we understand ourselves, who will decide how it shapes our world?
Ian Bremmer cautions, "The winner or the winners are going to determine in large part what society looks like, what the motivating ideologies are." He stresses that AI’s direction is driven not by technology alone, but by the humans who design and program these systems.
"That's kind of why you need the UN and you need responsible AI governance as part of the conversation," Bremmer adds.
Ian spoke at the 2025 Abu Dhabi Global AI Summit panel “Bringing AI Technology, Trust, and Talent to the World,” part of GZERO Media’s Global Stage series in partnership with Microsoft. The Global Stage series convenes global leaders for critical discussions on the geopolitical and technological trends shaping our world.
America’s “buy now, pay later” trap
The United States is #winning.
At least that’s how it looks if you’re tracking the economy, market indices, or the parade of countries lining up to cut deals with President Donald Trump. Asian and Gulf countries have pledged trillions of dollars in foreign direct investment in the US during the Trump presidency. The United Kingdom, the European Union, and several Southeast Asian nations have offered non-reciprocal trade deals. Canada folded on its plan to impose a digital services tax. Japan made unilateral concessions on automotive tariffs and Nippon Steel. European pharmaceutical companies are relocating production stateside to avoid punitive tariffs. Consumer confidence may be in the doldrums, but spending remains resilient (driven by the wealthiest Americans). Combined with an artificial intelligence spending boom and massive deficit spending – enabled by the dollar’s ongoing status as the global reserve currency – markets continue betting on American liquidity and growth.
It’s a heady moment. But while the short-term picture looks strong, the United States is systematically trading long-term strategic advantages for immediate tactical gains, with the accumulating costs hiding in plain sight.
Start with immigration. For decades, the cornerstone of America’s technological, economic, and soft-power dominance has been its ability to attract the best and brightest from around the world. Talented engineers, scientists, and entrepreneurs long chose the US because it promised opportunity, freedom, openness, and meritocracy – a fair shot at the American Dream. Now, the welcome mat is fraying. The Trump administration is increasingly hostile to immigrants (whether legal or illegal, skilled or unskilled), nativist sentiment among Americans is growing, and civil liberties (especially for non-white immigrants) feel increasingly uncertain. The numbers speak for themselves: International student arrivals to the US have declined by nearly 20% relative to last year. Meanwhile, China is rolling out new visas explicitly designed to poach high-skilled workers from the United States, and Canada is plastering airports with recruitment pitches. As America becomes a less attractive destination for top global talent relative to its competitors, the long-term economic damage will compound.
Then there are the universities. Yes, many humanities departments had grown intellectually insular and politically captured. Taking on these echo chambers for fringe woke ideology was long overdue. But the Trump administration has gone much further, slashing research infrastructure at America’s (and the world’s) finest universities. These institutions are what keep America at the cutting edge of advanced science and technology and draw the most talented students globally – the ones who become tomorrow’s leading researchers, inventors, and entrepreneurs. Undermining that ecosystem will erode one of the most important pillars of the US economy at a time when public trust in science itself is declining. Growing vaccine skepticism, embrace of conspiracy theories, reflexive rejection of expertise – these aren’t just cultural quirks, they’re a structural disadvantage when competing against countries where faith in science remains strong. They’re making Americans less capable of driving the next wave of technological advances, and therefore less likely to dominate the commanding heights of the world economy and geopolitics.
Consider artificial intelligence. The United States is racing ahead in consumer-facing AI – chatbots, engagement-maximizing social media algorithms, generative tools to produce yet-more-addictive slop, ever-larger language models that claim to be one step closer to superintelligence – because that’s where the money is. But these technologies are also fragmenting society, amplifying misinformation, and possibly contributing to a kind of collective psychosis. China, by contrast, has channeled AI development away from consumer applications in favor of defense and industrial uses, which carry less risk of social fragmentation and more strategic upside.
It’s a similar story when it comes to energy. The United States has become the world’s most powerful petrostate, producing more oil, gas, and coal than any other country. That’s not inherently a problem – fossil fuels will continue to power data centers, agriculture, and heavy industry for decades to come. But the US has effectively ceded leadership on post-carbon energy to China, which already dominates battery technology, solar power, next-generation nuclear, and supply chains for critical minerals. Washington is doubling down on hydrocarbons while letting the future of energy pass it by.
Or take trade policy. The Trump administration is imposing the highest US tariffs in a century – including on major allies, on countries with no bilateral trade imbalances, and on sectors where America lacks capacity to ramp up domestic production quickly enough to avoid shortages or inflation. Following Trump’s Oct. 30 meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping – which put escalation on hold for a year and lowered fentanyl tariffs on China from 20% to 10% in exchange for politically-sensitive soybean purchases – the effective US tariff rate on Chinese imports now sits at 32%, close to the rate on ASEAN countries and lower than on its strategic partner India and South America’s largest economy, Brazil, which actually runs a trade surplus with the United States.
The cumulative result is a roughly 17% regressive tax on American businesses and consumers, which are forced to pay more for intermediate inputs and final goods. Paired with a sharp turn toward industrial policy and state capitalism, the US is moving away from the free-market principles that made its economy so competitive in the first place. Targeted government intervention in select sectors (e.g., semiconductors, banking) can sometimes be justified on specific grounds (e.g., national security, financial stability), but history shows that broad protectionism and state direction tend to make economies less, not more, dynamic over time.
This short-term thinking extends to geopolitics. As I wrote last week, most countries are prepared to give the US wins – some pyrrhic, some significant – to avoid open conflict. But these same countries are also working to ensure they’re never in that position again. The EU has finalized trade agreements with Mexico, Indonesia, and the South American trading bloc Mercosur. Brazil is deepening economic ties with Europe, China, and Canada. India is working to stabilize relations with China while accelerating infrastructure projects that reduce its dependence on US markets. Saudi Arabia has signed a nuclear deal with Pakistan to hedge against future security neglect from Washington.
These moves aren’t costless – they require years of political capital, billions in investment, and new institutional architecture. Once built, they’re hard to reverse. But countries have learned the hard way that US policy can change course every election cycle with little in the way of policy continuity or long-term strategic planning, and they’re building alternatives now while accommodating Washington in the short run. Every four years, there’s a 50/50 chance that everything – not just the winners and losers but the rules of the road – shifts. Gone are the days when politics ended at water’s edge. That structural volatility reduces American leverage over time, even as it delivers wins for the world’s largest economy.
So when asking whether the United States will retain its lead over its allies and adversaries, the answer depends on the time horizon. Short-term? Absolutely. America remains by far the world’s most powerful country, so there’s a lot of room for damage before structural decline sets in. Moreover, artificial intelligence is about to change everything, and the US is one of only two games in town (China being the other) and still the preferred partner for most of the West and parts of the Global South.
But long term, the trajectory is troubling. The historical advantages the United States enjoyed over its peers – better physical and institutional infrastructure, superior demographics driven partly by immigration, public tolerance for inequality undergirded by perception of meritocracy, greater capacity for deficit spending – are all heading in the wrong direction, arguably unsustainably so. China, despite being in a weaker overall position, is doing what it can to exploit these shifts. And while Beijing faces severe structural challenges of its own, it benefits from the increasingly accurate perception that it takes the long view while America chases the next election.
Perhaps most worrying is the one thing everyone in a deeply divided America now agrees on: that the country’s biggest threat is domestic. They just disagree on who that threat is. That kind of inward turn ensures the bulk of the national energy and focus will remain on fighting internecine political battles rather than making the deeper, patient investments – in people, institutions, research, and infrastructure – required to keep the United States competitive a generation from now.
America is giving up long-term leadership in exchange for short-term wins. The question isn’t whether the United States will pay for this addiction to immediate gratification. It's only when the bill will come due – and how much it will cost.
How society plays an active role in shaping the future with AI
Who really shapes and influences the development of AI? The creators or the users?
Peng Xiao, Group CEO, G42, argues it’s both. “I actually do not subscribe that the creators have so much control they can program every intent into this technology so users can only just respond and be part of that design,” he explains. He stresses, “The more a society uses AI, the more we can influence the development of it. We are co-creators, co-influencers of this technology.”
Highlighting the UAE’s national AI strategy, Xiao points to Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence, where undergraduates as young as 16 are founding their own companies.
The UAE has also launched programs teaching AI to learners aged 7 to 70 and is deploying billions of AI agents to augment productivity across industries, including oil, cybersecurity, and agriculture.
Xiao spoke at the 2025 Abu Dhabi Global AI Summit panel “Bringing AI Technology, Trust, and Talent to the World,” part of GZERO Media’s Global Stage series in partnership with Microsoft. The Global Stage series convenes global leaders for critical discussions on the geopolitical and technological trends shaping our world.
Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro reacts after shooting an arrow during a rally on the Day of Indigenous Resistance, his first public appearance after opposition leader Maria Corina Machado was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, in Caracas, Venezuela, on October 12, 2025.
What We’re Watching: Venezuela clamps down on dissidents, Democrats celebrate election successes, Leading economist warns of triple bubble
Venezuela’s Maduro turns the screws as Trump ponders regime change
Amid intensifying US attacks on alleged Venezuela-linked drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean, Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro is cracking down on dissent at home. The largest US military buildup in the Caribbean in decades has raised concerns that US President Donald Trump may seek to knock Maduro out of power altogether. Maduro — who remains deeply unpopular after evidently rigging last year’s presidential election — has deployed loyalist vigilantes to police dissent and arrested dozens more critics. (For more on this see our latest “Debrief” with Eurasia Group’s Venezuela expert Risa Grais-Targow here.)
Democrats celebrate a good election night
As Democrats plot a path back to power in next year’s midterms, last night’s local election results give them much to chew over. First, voters in California authorized a redistricting that gives Dems a shot to overturn five GOP-held seats. Second, centrist Democrats comfortably won the gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia, while voters in swing-state Pennsylvania re-elected three liberal state Supreme Court justices. A key factor in VA and NJ was that voters of color who had voted for Trump in 2024 swung back to the Democrats. Lastly, of course, democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the New York mayoral race will intensify internal party debates about whether to double down on centrism or populism.
Leading economist warns of three big bubbles
Is the world economy about to take a bubble bath? The head of the World Economic Forum has warned of three potentially crippling financial market bubbles: in crypto, in AI, and in public debt. If any of the three bursts — that is, if a critical mass of investors think they are overvalued and start a mass sell 0ff – we could be in for a world of hurt. Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon and JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon have both recently warned of a coming market correction. The WEF comments came amid a brief selloff yesterday in tech stocks over concerns about over-investment in AI.
The three skills everyone needs to thrive in the AI era
As artificial intelligence transforms work, how do organizations equip people with the skills to thrive?
Brad Smith, Vice Chair and President of Microsoft, says the answer lies in understanding a new landscape of AI skills.
Speaking at the 2025 Abu Dhabi Global AI Summit, Smith outlined three key skills needed in the AI era:
1. AI fluency, the ability to use AI tools effectively;
2. AI engineering, focused on building advanced AI applications; and
3. Organizational leadership, which emphasizes guiding teams through cultural and operational change
He also highlighted global disparities in AI adoption: “We are in the global capital today of AI adoption … the UAE leads the world with roughly a 59% per capita adoption rate … the United States is only 29%.”
Smith shared these insights during the panel “Bringing AI Technology, Trust, and Talent to the World,” part of GZERO Media’s Global Stage series in partnership with Microsoft, which brings together global leaders to discuss the geopolitical and technological trends shaping our world.
Then-Republican vice presidential candidate Dick Cheney points out something to then-Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush during a campaign stop in Casper, Wyoming, on July 26, 2000.
Hard Numbers: Dick Cheney dies, China sentences Myanmar scammers to death, Jamaica town left in ruins, OpenAI splashes cash on computing power
84: Former US Vice President Dick Cheney, a powerful and controversial leader who had outsized influence as President George W. Bush’s second-in-command, died on Monday at 84. Cheney was best known for pushing the 2003 invasion of Iraq, using flawed intelligence to justify the decision. His critics would later call him a war criminal. A stalwart of Wyoming and Republican politics, Cheney came to reject his own party after the rise of Donald Trump.
90%: As Jamaica continues to assess the damage from Hurricane Melissa, one town has found itself hit especially hard. In Black River, a town on the south of the Caribbean island, 90% of the homes have been destroyed. The power is still out in the town, phones are down, and food supplies are running out.
5: A Chinese court handed down death sentences to five members of a major Myanmar mafia as part of a larger crackdown on scamming in Southeast Asia. The convicts had run schemes worth billions of dollars involving human trafficking, fraud, sexual slavery and murder of Chinese citizens. Myanmar had extradited the scam leaders to Beijing early last year.
$38 billion: As part of its tireless, and expensive, race to to secure computing power, OpenAI signed a $38-billion deal with Amazon Web Services (AWS) that will allow the loss-making AI firm to use AWS infrastructure to run its products. OpenAI has now committed to spending an eye-watering $1.5 trillion on computing resources.
Inclusion by design: Rebeca Grynspan on AI, inequality & global reform
As AI reshapes the global economy, who gets left behind and how can developing nations catch up?
At the 2025 Abu Dhabi Global AI Summit, UNCTAD Secretary-General Rebeca Grynspan warns that without deliberate action, the world’s poorest countries risk exclusion from the AI revolution. “There is no way that trickle down will make the trick,” she tells GZERO Media’s Tony Maciulis. “We have to think about inclusion by design.”
Grynspan stresses that financing and investment, not just aid, are critical: “3.4 billion people live in countries spending more on debt service than on health or education.” She calls for the World Bank and IMF to “assume more risk” to help scale private investment in developing economies.
Despite rising tariffs and trade tensions, she notes trade remains resilient driven by digital services, AI innovation, and the growing need for smarter global cooperation.
This conversation is part of GZERO Media’s Global Stage series, presented in partnership with Microsoft.