Image of the week: C’est AI
In this week’s hell-in-a-handcart news, the refusal of both the US and the UK to sign an international agreement on “inclusive and sustainable” artificial intelligence (AI) at a global summit in Paris felt like a subplot – one of those subplots that will actually turn out to be extremely important later on.
This summit, held in the echoey Grand Palais, was a high-powered one. OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman took a break from sparring with Elon Musk to chat with French president and summit host Emmanuel Macron. Alphabet boss Sundar Pichai, who declared AI would be “the most profound shift of our lifetimes”, discussed various opportunities with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi.
Ireland, represented at the event by Taoiseach Micheál Martin, was among the signatories to an agreement aimed at ensuring AI is “open, inclusive, transparent, ethical, safe, secure and trustworthy”. Obviously these qualities are anathema to the US administration, represented by vice-president JD Vance, who showed up to pour cold water on the idea that AI should be regulated and suggested everyone was being “too risk averse”.
The UK, meanwhile, failed to send a senior government figure to the summit at all, then claimed it hadn’t signed the declaration because it “didn’t provide enough practical clarity on global governance, nor sufficiently address harder questions around national security”. It’s definitely not because Downing Street is trying to be pally with the White House, okay.
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In numbers: Plastic population
$15
Price of a pack of 10 branded plastic straws sold by the Donald Trump campaign during his failed 2020 re-election bid. Trump has now signed an executive order that reverses a Joe Biden move to end public procurement of plastic straws.
460 million
Metric tonnes of plastic produced every year, according to the United Nations Environment Programme. This contributes to oceanic waste and increases human exposure to microplastics. Paper straws are, however, “liberal”.
25%
Trump’s introduction of a 25 per cent tariff on aluminium entering the US and the likely impact this will have on the cost of drinks cans has prompted Coca-Cola to consider putting “more emphasis” on the use of plastic bottles.
Getting to know: Edward Coristine
The world would be in better shape if no one was required to know a thing about Edward Coristine (19), least of all that he goes by the online moniker “Big Balls”. But the shorts-wearing teen is an acolyte of Elon Musk, the centibillionaire intent on dismantling the US Agency for International Development, and therefore a key lieutenant in the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) youth squad currently subverting US democratic norms. Coristine, who briefly worked for Musk’s brain chip start-up Neuralink, is not merely a Doge guy, he also holds senior adviser roles at the US state department, the department of homeland security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema). Having been fired from a cybersecurity firm in 2022 for leaking internal information to a competitor, this poster boy for the Musk “meritocracy” has already amassed quite the CV for a 19-year-old. He could be Federal Reserve chairman next.
The list: Gulf stances
Last Sunday wasn’t just Super Bowl day, it was also Gulf of America Day, proclaimed Trump. Yes, there was a proclamation. Well, what’s the point in stripping a body of water of its centuries-old name if you can’t commemorate the “momentous occasion” with a special day? Here’s how these five companies are approaching the Great Renaming.
1. BP: The worst environmental disaster in US history used to be referred to as the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Now, according to the annual results published by BP this week, the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion took place in the Gulf of America.
2. Google: US users see “Gulf of America”, users in Mexico see “Gulf of Mexico” and users elsewhere see “Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)”. Clear?
3. Apple: US users of Apple Maps will now also see “Gulf of America”, with the change set to be rolled out to users around the globe in due course.
4. Microsoft: Does anyone care what Bing maps calls anything? On the off chance they do, Microsoft is also set to ditch the 16th-century name – in the US, at least – in favour of the one Trump likes.
5. AP: Associated Press, as a global news wire, opted to keep calling the Gulf of Mexico by its original name while “acknowledging the new name Trump has chosen”. As a punishment for this errant style-guide policy, an AP reporter was this week barred from accessing an event in the Oval Office.
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