Darrell Castle talks about a new world of artificial intelligence being developed in Saudi Arabia. Transcription / Notes THE NEW SAUDI ARABIA Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report.  Today is Friday, November 17, 2017, and on today’s Report I will continue the discussion of Saudi Arabia that we began a few weeks ago.  This is an important topic today as Saudi Arabia moves rapidly to consolidate a trans-generational change of power for the first time in 50 years.  The founding King has no more of his 36 sons left after the current one, King Salman, and therefore, power must pass to a grandson. King Salman, 88 years old, has selected his favorite son and close advisor, Mohammed bin Salman, age 32, as Crown Prince. It was assumed that King Salman would name Mohammed bin Nayef, head of the Interior Ministry, as his successor but instead, he selected Mohammed bin Salman.  Bin Salman is apparently the favorite son and top advisor to the King and, at age 32, is young enough to rule for many years.  He represents the King’s effort to restructure the House of Saud, and along with it, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and he represents the global world that is being built for us. The Crown Prince says that he is not into radical Islam at all, especially the Wahabi sect of radical Islam.  Instead, he wants to modernize and bring the Kingdom and bring it into the 21st century.  The King started the process with a decree that women would be allowed to drive cars. The Crown Prince decided to kick off the new Saudi Arabia with an international conference, which we will discuss at length in a minute, but for now the conference was held last week at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Riyadh.  Billionaires from around the world came, as did several of the Crown Prince’s rivals including high profile billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal.  He, along with 11 or 12 other Princes, were arrested on corruption charges.  They are still confined to the Ritz-Carlton, which is a pretty nice place if you have to be confined. I predicted dire things for the Kingdom in my last podcast called The Rape of Yemen, including the monarchy falling to radical forces.  The Crown Prince apparently intends to prevent that from happening by using force and changes designed to modernize the country.  His changes, he hopes, will bring ordinary Saudis into the camp of the new country and out of the camp of the radicals. That there is more to the changes than just consolidation of power is obvious from the economic crises threatening the country.   Oil was discovered in Saudi Arabia in 1938, and since that year the seemingly inexhaustible thirst of the world’s internal combustion engines for oil has made the Kingdom extremely wealthy.  But what goes around comes around as they say and now the price of oil has fallen and shows no sign of relenting anytime soon.  The low oil prices, competition from American fracking technology, and expected long term reduced demand for oil, have sent shock waves through the world’s oil producers. Ninety-five per cent of Saudi GDP comes from oil, which will eventually put the country into a death spiral if something isn’t done.  Very soon, the Saud family, will not be in an economic position to pay the forces of radical Islam to avoid revolution.  King Salman is forward thinking enough to understand this, so he has spent his last years as King grooming the new Crown Prince to take the country in a different direction. Transitioning from complete dependence on oil revenue will not be easy, but the effort to wean the Saudi people off subsidies has already started.  The future plans, however, are to take the Kingdom into the new global world as a full partner with those seeking globalization at whatever price.  Vision 2030 is the name of the new initiative that seeks to leverage the massive financial reserves held in the Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund toward global investment.  Still, it’s not at all clear how the young Prince will pull it ...