"2023 was the year in which the State regained control of economic policy with so-called de-risking: a risk reduction strategy by which the West wishes to move away from reliance on the Chinese market in strategic sectors such as technology and renewable energy. Some of the crises have since subsided. The central banks have proven that they can manage the growth of inflation and they can contain the earthquake that we saw in March with the fall of Silicon Valley Bank. Other emergencies, however, are still ongoing: such as the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. And so, 2024 is gearing up to be the ground for several open issues, first of all the effects of de-risking which could be limited or revised, or even extended to services as well, as an end to the liberal economic recipes of the last four decades."

The latest earthquake to shake Silicon Valley was last Friday 17th November. The epicenter was at 601 Mission Street, San Francisco, headquarters to OpenAI – the leader of the AI sector. In less than a week, the CEO was first ejected and then reinstated on his chair. The tremors at the top of OpenAI are the final act in a secret war between the two factions of techno-optimists and techno-critics, who fear humanity’s loss of control over AI. But the real plot twist is the entrance on the board of Lawrence Henry Summers, the tight-rope walker, the fabricator: the mastermind behind American capitalism of the last thirty years.

It’s called Artificial Intelligence as a Service, and it’s the AI of our near future. It’s practical, easy to use, and available to all: just like electricity. It seems to be a revolution, but the debate is raging, and many are starting to push back against it. The doomsayers on one side – warning against the risks of unbridled growth of AI, and the ultra-optimists on the other – such as American entrepreneur Marc Andreessen and his “Techno-Optimist Manifesto”. It might seem impossible to balance out relentless technological acceleration against the containment of AI’s uncountable permutations, but this is exactly what we’ll need to do if we want the thinking machines to be a new lightbulb that illuminates our planet, rather than a new doomsday device which could destroy it.

The audio insert you hear in this episode is taken from The Matrix, a 1999 film directed by Sister Wachowski and produced by Warner Bros, available on Netflix.

The debate surrounding artificial intelligence is dominated by the concept of “existential risk”, or the fear that we as humans feel that an invention can get out of our control. Humanity is facing the dangers of a sudden technological paradigm shift, just like at the times of nuclear energy and the Bomb. Unlike the Cold War, though, there’s no logic of deterrence and no principle of containment. Artificial intelligence is the brainchild of a few choice individuals in Silicon Valley, but it has thousands of implications and multiple potentially devastating risks. So, we can’t possibly hope to contain it unless we imagine a pervasive and permanent surveillance state, and even that might not be enough.

The audio inserts you hear in this episode are taken from Wargames, a 1983 film directed by John Badham and produced by MGM/UA Entertainment Co., available on Prime Video.

They call it the “Gig Economy”. It’s the field of short-term services, such as private drivers, deliveries, and food couriers struggling to complete as many tasks as possible within the shortest time. As they do so, they get points and go up in their ranking, just like in videogames. But this is no game, it’s the tragic reality of a world that has cancelled worker rights. Digital platforms are in charge of it all. Recently, the employment tribunal of Palermo has sentenced that to rank workers is discriminatory, thus pointing a finger directly at this nightmare that we call “gig economy”.

Recently, the court of Milan has seized 779 million euros from Airbnb, the largest web service in the short-term homestay market. According to investigation, the digital goliath failed to pay its taxes for the Italian market in the years 2017 to 2021. Many things have changed since Airbnb was celebrated as the magic pill for putting renters directly in touch with travelers, benefitting both. Nowadays, the Californian company is losing control of its own narrative, as it finds itself at the center of controversy, fines, and tax issues as well as being accused of transforming neighborhoods and emptying city centers. A new wind is blowing, and the app giants are finding it harder to continue playing the part of the “good guys”.

It’s called Coltan, and it’s a precious mineral used to make electronics and computers. Essential to build smartphone capacitors and batteries, mostly extracted in Africa. In the last year and a half, the map of central Africa itself has been riddled by violent state coups. This map of political unrest is almost identical to that of the mines where coveted materials such as Coltan are extracted. It’s a map of wild exploitation, violence and wars for the control of resources, in the name of Europe, the USA, Russia and China. It’s the map of pain for millions of human beings.

In 2023, the price of gold has almost reached a historic high, and rising. The greatest safe-haven asset, the most coveted metal, is the answer to the great crises that have been battering us incessantly, shaking global assets and panicking markets. While its price reaches two-thousand dollars an ounce, central banks are rushing to increase their gold reserves. The world is once more seeking out Eldorado, but the new gold rush is marked by the contradictions of a never-ending state of alert.

30th of October 1998, the Court of Rome officially declares the presumed death of Federico Caffè – the economist who disappeared without a trace one morning in April 1987. Professor of Economic and Financial Policies at the University of Rome, uncompromising Keynesian. Caffé literally vanished after his school of thought was defeated by the Conservative revolution of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Thirty-seven years later, many things have changed. The State is once again guiding the economy through the many systemic crises of our time – from the pandemic to wars. The ghosts of John Maynard Keynes have returned to the West, but the meaning of these apparitions is still unclear.

The specter of inflation is back in the western world, and the Central Banks are struggling to keep it under control. The war in Ukraine and the Middle East, the return of supply chains after thirty years of unbridled offshoring, and the demand for higher salaries in the USA are all factors in the recent price fever. On the horizon, we can see that structural inflation is only going to get worse. Central banks are going to be like a high-wire walker, managing a delicate balancing act, because inflation has two faces: when it’s too low it shows a physiological problem of growth, but when it’s too high it creates issues with refinancing public debt.