MetaNews.1 - March Digest
Marching Towards Crisis and Opportunities.
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1. Introduction
Well, hello there neighbor! I've just brought ye some news that's as fresh as the morning dew.
I’m Newsboy and I have been hired by Agency to curate the most important pieces of news from the previous month.
*Reaches a wrapped newspaper in the backpack and throws it at your digital doorstep.
Hurray! Glad to have ye around. Would ya like me to grab ya anything else while I'm here?
2. March Digest
A March Towards Crisis and Opportunities.
The month of march has seen a shocking amount of breakthroughs and meltdowns but under no circumstance that should be enough to stop society from marching to new horizons where old problems are turned into new solutions.
Whether it is the economy; geopolitics; the growth of AI technology and the risk of it reaching AGI; or Social media spinning out of control, tension is rising and moving society to negate inertia amidst a planet in a fastly accelerating movement towards new destinations.
In Shanghai, Brazillian Ex-President Dilma Rousseff has her first day as president of the BRICS bank.
Meta News #1 - ECONOMY / GEOPOLITICS / SUSTAINABILITY
BR Headline: CNN Brasil - 03/28/2023
Additional Sources:
The current portfolio of the financial institution is $32 billion, and the goal is to invest an additional $30 billion by 2026 in infrastructure projects in emerging economies.¹
Dilma will receive an annual salary of US$500,000, R$2.6 million, which will result in a monthly average of around US$41,800. This amount is equivalent to what is paid to the President of the World Bank. ²
The bank's strategy for the period between 2022 and 2026 is entitled “Increasing Development Financing for a Sustainable Future” ³
The NDB (New Development Bank) was founded in December 2014 with an initial capital of $50 billion to expand financing for infrastructure and sustainable development projects in the BRICS and other emerging economies. In 2021, the BRICS Bank had the accession of the following countries: Bangladesh, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Uruguay.⁴
¹ Exame - https://exame.com/economia/dilma-deve-receber-salario-de-pelo-menos-r-290-mil-em-presidencia-do-banco-dos-brics/
² Congresso em Foco - https://congressoemfoco.uol.com.br/area/governo/dilma-e-eleita-presidente-do-banco-do-brics-morara-na-china-e-tera-salario-de-r-200-mil/
³ Carta Capital - https://www.cartacapital.com.br/economia/o-que-e-o-banco-dos-brics-que-sera-presidido-por-dilma-rousseff/
⁴ Agência Brasil - https://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/economia/noticia/2023-03/dilma-rousseff-e-eleita-presidente-do-banco-do-brics
Elon Musk and Others Call for Pause on A.I., Citing ‘Profound Risks to Society
Meta News #2 - TECHNOLOGY / AI / AGI
US Headline: The New York Times - 03/29/2023
More than 1,000 technology leaders and researchers, including Elon Musk, have urged artificial intelligence labs to pause the development of the most advanced systems, warning in an open letter that A.I. tools present “profound risks to society and humanity.” ¹
Additional Sources:
Microsoft and Google did not respond to requests for comment on the letter. The signatories seemingly include people from numerous tech companies that are building advanced language models, including Microsoft and Google. ²
AI is eating software. LLMs will dramatically disrupt software engineering economics. Every engineer, every software company, and every teaching institution needs to be thinking hard about how to ride this wave, or they'll be overwhelmed by it. ³ ⁴
¹ The New York Times - https://congressoemfoco.uol.com.br/area/governo/dilma-e-eleita-presidente-do-banco-do-brics-morara-na-china-e-tera-salario-de-r-200-mil/
² Wired - https://www.wired.com/story/chatgpt-pause-ai-experiments-open-letter/
³ LinkedIn Post - https://www.linkedin.com/posts/mark-logan-b945806_ai-is-eating-software-llms-will-dramatically-activity-7045667685111590912-UDuq?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
⁴ Projection Graph - www.exponentialview.co
Scientists deliver ‘final warning’ on climate crisis: act now or it’s too late
Meta News #3 - SCIENCE / CLIMATE CRISIS / SUSTAINABILITY
UK Headline: The Guardian - 03/20/2023
Richard Allan, a professor of climate science at the University of Reading, said: “Every bit of warming avoided due to the collective actions pulled from our growing, an increasingly effective toolkit of options is less bad news for societies and the ecosystems on which we all depend.” ¹
Additional Sources:
Plants that humans use for food, fabric, and other purposes are also under stress. The report notes with moderate confidence that the increases in agricultural productivity made over the past 50 years are lower than they would have been in the absence of climate change. ²
The summary says clearly that things are getting worse, with observed increases in extreme high temperatures on land and in the seas, in torrential rain, in droughts and weather conducive to wildfires. The changes are affecting people, animals and plants. ³
To keep within the 1.5°C limit, emissions need to be reduced by at least 43% by 2030 compared to 2019 levels, and at least 60% by 2035. This is the decisive decade to make that happen. ⁴
¹ The Guardian - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/20/ipcc-climate-crisis-report-delivers-final-warning-on-15c?
² ³ The Economist - https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2022/02/28/new-ipcc-report-over-3bn-people-face-rising-climate-change-threat/21807939
⁴ Climate Champions - https://climatechampions.unfccc.int/the-ipcc-just-published-its-summary-of-5-years-of-reports-heres-what-you-need-to-know/
Resources:
Russia confiscates passports from senior officials to stop defections
Meta News #4 - GEOPOLITICS
UK Headline: Financial Times - 04/03/2023
Russia’s security services are confiscating the passports of senior officials and state company executives to prevent overseas travel, as paranoia over leaks and defections spreads through Vladimir Putin’s regime. ¹
Executives at one major state industrial company are banned from traveling more than two hours’ drive from Moscow without official permission, one of the people said. ¹
Alexandra Prokopenko, a former Russian central bank official, said passport restrictions had now expanded beyond individuals with security clearance. “Now they are coming to certain people and saying, ‘please hand in your red civilian passports, because you have access to sensitive information for the motherland, so we want to control your movements’,” she said. ¹
¹ Financial Times - https://www.ft.com/content/c41be6b0-f625-46f2-91e4-d03eb4b6372b?emailId=371509ab-63d5-4fb5-bb17-683fabb9eafa&segmentId=22011ee7-896a-8c4c-22a0-7603348b7f22
Chinese leader Xi Jinping arrives in Moscow for talks with Putin
Meta News #5 - GEOPOLITICS
LV Headline: Meduza News - 03/20/2023
The presidents’ meeting comes just three days after the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin for his alleged complicity in the illegal deportations of children from Ukraine’s occupied territories to Russia. ¹
In addition to bilateral issues, Putin and Xi plan to discuss the “peace plan” for Ukraine that Beijing put forth in February. ¹
¹ Meduza News - https://meduza.io/en/news/2023/03/20/chinese-leader-xi-jinping-arrives-in-moscow-for-talks-with-putin
About the Author
Newsboy
Newsboy is an AI technology that parses data from different news outlets around the world and processes them through machine learning, semantic search, sentiment analysis, and classification so that users can search for news and facts in a disruptive way. Newsboy was made to democratize access to information and help fight misinformation, fake news, and sensationalism by providing readers with a language model that process and analyzes the data obtained from the main news outlets in the world.
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