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hat do white supremacist Silicon Valley tech bros and terrorist mass shooters of mosques, synagogues, and migrant centers have in common?

They all subscribe to a death cult that dreams of a utopic world where there is racial and cultural hierarchy, and all non-white migrants are deported from Western countries and imperialism, hard power and exploitation to reign again in the global order.

The world is facing a new form of terrorism threat and fascism: it is called Accelerationism. Accelerationists disdain non-white migrants, Muslims, ethnic minorities, radicals and politicians that advocate for diversity, integrating migrants, decolonial justice, and the reparation for slavery and colonialism.

Death cults

On May 19, 2026, two teenagers attacked a San Diego Mosque, killing three people and livestreamed their shooting. A 75-page manifesto written by the shooters espoused Islamophobia, antisemitism, anti-Black racism, Hispanophobia, accelerationism and misogyny was later found online. This was not an isolated incident. On March 15, 2019, a gunman walked into the Al Noor Mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, and murdered 51 Muslims while livestreaming the massacre on Facebook. He left behind a manifesto soaked in the language of accelerationism and had similarities with the San Diego shooters’ manifesto.  Accelerationism espouses the idea that Western/White civilization must be pushed to a violent breaking point so that white and “pure” ethnostates can rise from the ashes and reclaim their glorious past.

The terrorism in Christchurch and accelerationism have a long history. It echoed Anders Breivik’s 2011 massacre in Norway, where 77 people, most of them teenagers, were murdered in the name of protecting Europe from cultural Marxism and Muslim migration. It echoed the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, the El Paso Walmart attack targeting Hispanic shoppers, the Buffalo supermarket massacre aimed at Black Americans.

Accelerationist terrorism is carried out in the name of ideological and cultural warfare, carried out by mostly young white men who believe that accelerating racial, cultural and religious conflict would hasten a white supremacist revolution, response and reaction.

AI and the far-right

The question the world has been too slow to ask is this: who is building the intellectual, ideological and political infrastructure that makes this violence justifiable?

Look no further than Silicon Valley.

Elon Musk, today the world’s richest man, owner of X (formerly Twitter), and now the single most powerful unelected figure in the United States, has spent recent years amplifying white nationalist accounts, and platforming “great replacement” conspiracy theories, and signal-boosting neo-Nazi rhetoric to hundreds of millions of followers across the world. His very public embrace of far-right European parties, his attacks on Muslim communities, his obsessive promotion of white demographic anxiety, are not the eccentricities of a distracted Trillionaire. When Musk performed a Nazi salute at a post-inauguration rally and the world shrugged, it confirmed what many had long suspected: white supremacy has found its most powerful champion not in the backrooms of a skinhead bar but in the boardrooms of the most valuable companies on earth.

Marc Andreessen, the venture capitalist and co-founder of Netscape, published his “Techno-Optimist Manifesto” in 2023, declaring that there is no problem “that cannot be solved with more technology” and that the “techno-capital machine” exists to serve humanity. What he did not say is whose humanity he had in mind. The effective accelerationist movement (e/acc) that Andreessen and his Silicon Valley peers champion is accelerationism with a smile: the same ruthless logic of letting destructive forces run unchecked, dressed up in the language of progress, technology and innovation. The merger of white nationalist politics and Silicon Valley capital is no longer a fringe concern. It is the ideology of most Far Right and white supremacist political movements.

Underneath all of it runs a single obsession: replacement. The “great replacement” theory, the paranoid anxiety that white Western populations are being deliberately displaced by non-white migrants, has migrated from the fever swamps of the internet into mainstream conservative politics across Europe, America, and Australia. Replacement paranoia is the connective tissue between the Christchurch shooter and the French Far Right, between the neo-Nazi accelerationist and the Arktos circle and the recently exposed Dialog list of Peter Thiel. This is an ideological project: a far-right internationalism that stretches from Budapest to Buenos Aires, from Washington to Warsaw, and united by the shared paranoid conviction that the non-white world and its peoples are an existential threat to Western civilization.

Techno-fascism

And now this far right international has acquired its most powerful tool yet: Artificial Intelligence.

The global AI economy is being built on a foundation that replicates, with algorithmic precision, the colonial extraction of previous centuries. The data that trains the large language models powering Silicon Valley’s fortunes is harvested from populations across the Global South, often without consent, without compensation, and without benefit. The content moderation labour that makes these platforms usable is outsourced to workers in Kenya, the Philippines, India and Pakistan, paid poverty wages to absorb the worst of humanity’s digital violence so that Western users need not see it.

Moreover, the rare earth minerals that power the hardware are extracted from the Congo, from Bolivia, from Indonesia, by workforces whose conditions would be unthinkable in any country whose citizens Musk and Andreessen consider fully human.

This is the new colonialism, not the colonialism of the gunboat and the governor-general, but of the server farm and the terms of service agreement. The Global South is being incorporated into the AI economy not as a beneficiary but as raw material: its people as cheap labour, its data as free resource, its governments as compliant hosts, and most consequentially the Silicon Valley tech bros dream of a hierarchical world where the Global South is exploited and enslaved.

The accelerationists and the tech bros, in both their violent and techno-utopian forms, agree on one thing: some lives are the fuel, not the destination.

In their hyper-technological and advanced futuristic utopian world, where Musk, Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel and other billionaires will go for vacation to Mars, there is no place for Muslims, Africans and peoples of the Global South.

Violent death cults have always worn different suits and hoodies in different eras. Today they wear a hoodie or suit and call themselves disruption innovationists, Techno-Utopianists or efficiency strategists.

The mosques of Christchurch and the sweatshops of Nairobi are not separate stories. They are the same story, told in different registers of the same accelerationist logic: that some people exist to be exploited so that others may prosper and build a civilization that reaches Mars and beyond while the Global South is robbed of its wealth, labour and minds and rendered perpetually poor and miserable.

We should not look away.

All forms and manifestations of hatred, dehumanization and exploitation ought to be challenged and resisted – even when it’s clothed in the language of technological advancement or saving a particular civilization, culture or race.

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rtificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping the U.S. technology industry, with major companies accelerating workforce reductions as they restructure operations, automate tasks and redirect investment toward AI-driven growth.

Technology firms are increasingly citing artificial intelligence as a primary reason for layoffs, reflecting a broader shift in corporate strategy aimed at boosting productivity, lowering costs and streamlining operations.

Data from outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas show AI has become the leading justification for announced job cuts in the United States.

Nearly 40% of layoffs announced in May were attributed to artificial intelligence, a sharp increase from 7% in January, 10% in February, 25% in March and 26% in April.

The technology sector has been at the center of the trend.

Layoffs announced by technology companies during the first five months of 2026 rose 66% from the same period a year earlier, reaching 123,653 positions, making it the industry with the highest number of job cuts this year.

Economists caution that artificial intelligence is not the only factor behind the reductions. They say many companies are also responding to overhiring during the COVID-19 pandemic, persistent cost pressures and broader restructuring efforts aimed at improving profitability.

Major technology firms restructure around AI

Software giant Oracle reported one of the largest workforce reductions, revealing that its global full-time employee count declined by 21,000 over the past year.

A filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) showed Oracle employed 141,000 full-time workers as of May 31, down from 162,000 a year earlier.

The company said the adoption and deployment of artificial intelligence technologies across its operations had resulted in workforce reductions and could continue to do so.

Software development platform GitLab also announced significant restructuring as it shifts its business model toward AI-powered services.

The company said it will reduce its workforce by about 14%, eliminating roughly 350 jobs while simplifying management structures and withdrawing operations from 22 countries as it expands infrastructure for AI-related workloads.

Meta is pursuing a different strategy, combining layoffs with workforce redeployment.

According to U.S. media reports, the social media company plans to cut around 8,000 jobs while transferring approximately 7,000 employees into new AI-focused positions.

Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg reportedly told employees that the restructuring was necessary as competition in artificial intelligence intensifies, warning that success in the sector is not guaranteed.

Meta has already implemented multiple rounds of layoffs this year, including a 10% reduction in staff at its Reality Labs division in January, followed by additional cuts affecting hundreds of employees in March.

Broader industry transformation

Several other major technology companies have also announced workforce reductions linked to AI investments and organizational restructuring.

Financial software company Intuit said it will eliminate 17% of its full-time workforce to improve operational efficiency and focus more resources on strategic priorities, including artificial intelligence.

Networking equipment maker Cisco plans to cut approximately 4,000 jobs as it redirects investment toward AI and other growth businesses.

Cloudflare announced the elimination of more than 1,100 positions as it redesigns its organizational structure and internal processes for the AI era.

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase said it would reduce its workforce by around 14%, citing market conditions and its ongoing AI transformation.

Financial technology company PayPal has announced plans to reduce its workforce by 20% over the next three years while integrating artificial intelligence throughout its operations.

Social media platform Snap also joined the growing list of companies restructuring around AI, announcing plans to lay off about 1,000 employees—roughly 16% of its workforce—and eliminate more than 300 vacant positions.

Chief Executive Evan Spiegel said rapid advances in artificial intelligence were reducing repetitive tasks and accelerating business processes, making organizational changes necessary.

Other companies undertaking AI-related restructuring this year include Angi, Atlassian, Block, Crypto.com and Wix.

The wave of layoffs highlights how artificial intelligence is reshaping employment across the technology industry, with companies increasingly seeking to automate routine work while investing heavily in AI infrastructure and specialized talent.

While businesses argue the changes are necessary to remain competitive in a rapidly evolving market, the trend has also intensified concerns about the long-term impact of artificial intelligence on employment, particularly in administrative, software development and support functions.

(Source: Anadolu Agency)

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he “Technological Republic” manifesto published by Palantir has sparked new debates. This is because the published manifesto can be read not merely as a corporate vision, but as an explicit declaration of the new regime of domination in the age we live in—a form of digital colonialism. This text, signed by Peter Thiel and Alex Karp, shifts artificial intelligence from being merely a technical tool and directly elevates it to a core element of geopolitical domination. The software industry’s famous rhetoric of a ‘moral debt’ owed to the United States demonstrates that technology is no longer viewed as a neutral field, but rather as a terrain for political and military mobilization—in other words, a kind of digital front.

In essence, the landscape we are witnessing here is a reproduction of classical colonialism in the digital age. Yesterday, the imperial mindset that derived its legitimacy from the claim of bringing civilization is today re-establishing itself through security justifications and notions of algorithmic superiority. Just as the rhetoric of the ‘white man’s burden’ once constructed a hierarchical world order, today’s AI-centerd technological discourse is producing a similar epistemic domination. Given that the idea that some cultures are “more inclined towards progress” whilst certain societies are “in need of guidance and management” is explicitly stated in the manifesto, it is difficult to claim that this mindset has been dismantled or left behind. Consequently, the necessity to fight no longer arises solely on the military battlefield or at diplomatic tables, but directly within the decision-making architecture of algorithms and in lines of code.

The dismantling of algorithmic ethics

The most striking aspect of the Palantir manifesto is that the specific oligarchic interests, which for years have been concealed behind masks of universality, transparency and the common good of humanity, are now being declared without any need for concealment. Whilst the tech giants have for a long time presented themselves as structures that transcend borders, stand above ideologies, and serve the greater good of humanity, with this manifesto we see the mask has fallen. The call contained in the manifesto, whilst inviting other companies to adopt a similar stance, promises to turn artificial intelligence into a weapon, to protect the supreme interests of Western society, and to turn technology into a tool for exercising dominance over the weak.

The rhetoric of universalism is, in fact, merely a strategic mask for expanding the market and gaining infrastructural influence, and a reflection of past capitalist experiences. In reality, particular interests continue to masquerade as universal values, whilst labelling regulatory interventions by other countries as resistance to progress. Globalised trade, which in the past was driven by the bourgeoisie in opposition to mercantilist rhetoric, today seeks to constantly fend off countries’ legitimate and legal regulatory measures by invoking the balance between freedom and security, under the pretext of ‘attacks on freedom’.

This Western-centric technological paradigm takes refuge in ‘acceptable margin of error’ defences whilst claiming human lives in Gaza and Iran. Rather than distinguishing the innocent and the oppressed, it does not shy away from systematic massacres carried out by code. Children, women, those in schools, those in hospitals; in the eyes of the code, they are reduced to nothing more than acceptable numbers. This brutality, which aligns with Karp’s rhetoric of “intimidating the enemy” as stated in the manifesto, points to the mental landscape of technology.

Thiel’s transhumanist vision and his obsession with “upgrading the human race”, also featured in the manifesto, are the outward expression of yet another corrupt mindset. Behind this mindset, one can discern a constant master-servant hierarchy, a perpetual elitist approach, and a claim to authority. Indeed, by directly asserting that some societies are superior to others, he regards domination through AI as quite reasonable. However, this is not the fault of the AI itself, nor is it sufficient to blame the AI. What matters is being able to see the mindset underlying the algorithm and to understand how this tainted mindset views “us”. The issue is recognizing that technology in general, and AI in particular, is not a neutral field, but a terrain for geopolitical mobilization.

In fact, with every crisis originating from a tech company, we see a fresh batch of dirty laundry being aired, yet we still fail to grasp the true scale of the issue. Whilst the fallout from Palantir’s manifesto continues, Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI, filed in 2026, has brought yet another storm to the fore. While Musk argues that the company has strayed from its mission ‘for the benefit of humanity’ and evolved into a profit-driven tyranny, he overlooks the efforts of his own AI company xAI, the allegedly transhumanist Neuralink, and SolarCity—a firm which exploits the energy needs of millions of people on a massive scale. Whilst he himself holds dominant positions in sectors such as energy, space, the global internet, smart vehicles, artificial intelligence and medicine, he criticises other companies’ attempts at hegemony. However, Musk is correct in pointing out that OpenAI, which set out claiming to work for humanity, has begun to contribute to turning AI into a weapon in wars.

Epistemic liberation and values-driven technology

Whilst the Western world repeatedly lays bare its mindset through these manifestos, lawsuits and revelations, the fact that the views of two figures in the Turkish agenda opposing this mindset have come to the fore actually prompted this article. Selçuk Bayraktar’s emphasis on the need to develop technology with a vision centered on moral, ethical and human dignity—in response to the Palantir manifesto—and his approach questioning the mindset behind technology are, in this regard, highly valuable. On the other hand, Esra Albayrak’s address at the World Decolonization Forum was significant in terms of questioning the colonialist mindset. This address, which reminded us that this mindset dominates the world it has occupied through the triad of ‘erasing identity, erasing language, and establishing mastery’, actually describes the triad of data exploitation, linguistic dominance and algorithmic control in the digital age.

Naturally, since the colonialism of the digital age is now carried out not with tanks but with algorithms, there is no need for vast territories. From digital publishing platforms to social media, from apps to technological tools, and from operating systems to software, acts of occupation continue to infiltrate our intellectual world at every point—whether at home or in our pockets. This open yet covert occupation manifests itself in the form of platform dependency, algorithmic steering, and the shaping of our mental landscape. For this reason, the struggle for decolonization continues, and the need for a struggle for independence in the digital world grows day by day. On the one hand, there is the aim of not falling behind in the technology race; on the other, the aim of serving humanity by blending technology with human values. A key dimension of the aspiration to be a refuge for the oppressed, a voice for the innocent, and a defender of the righteous and justice lies in the construction of a value-driven digital space.

A Human-centered direction in technology and Turkey

Faced with this global landscape, Turkey’s historic duty is to construct a new paradigm that blends algorithmic independence with human dignity, and to chart its own sovereign roadmap in opposition to Western-centered algorithmic hegemony. The current path to establishing epistemic independence on the intellectual plane lies in being able to give a unique voice to the thoughts and emotions that shape technology and the digital sphere. This is only possible by having a say in the trajectory of technological development.

In the initial phase, it is imperative to rapidly strengthen national data sovereignty, oversight mechanisms and domestic artificial intelligence infrastructure at the institutional level. Our priorities include both protective measures against existing threats and steps that support initiatives to shape the future. Whilst capitalizing on opportunities, we must not overlook risks such as algorithmic bias, privacy breaches and geopolitical dependency; the aim should be to transform the individual from a data object into a subject whose agency is safeguarded.

Whilst we may believe we are protected by simple user agreements; it is now clear that technology—as a force—and the discourse of those who produce it serve as a strategic tool for building global influence. We must therefore strive to understand that neither social media, nor large language models, nor the phones in our hands, nor other data-collecting technologies are innocent, and we must discern whom they serve and to what extent.

We must not overlook the fact that these discussions could enable today’s algorithms to quietly erode civil rights and the right to life. In fact, in the face of this mindset that reduces human beings to a data set, what is required is the establishment of a paradigm rooted in ‘our values’ to counter algorithmic hegemony. A civilizational initiative that centeres compassion, ethics and human will against systems that code our children as ‘acceptable losses’ is not merely a national but a global imperative.

(Originally published in Turkish by Kriter)

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an an X post become the new handbook for a dying world order? Palantir Technologies recently transformed the 22 key arguments from the book The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West (2025) by the company’s CEO Alex Karp and Nicholas Zamiska into a concise series of posts on X. This post rejected Silicon Valley’s “app tyranny”, advocated for engineering talent to be directed towards national defense and strategic innovation, and positioned “hard power” as indispensable for the West’s survival. Criticism of the post was not long in coming. From established authors to social media influencers, many people contributed to the debate, writing articles on the subject. Headlines screamed “techno-fascism”. Academics warned against authoritarian tech elites. Social media figures described this vision as a dangerous fusion of artificial intelligence and conservatism.

However, the debates largely failed to move beyond emotional reactions to the bold voices raised by Palantir founder Peter Thiel, Alex Karp, and others against conventional states. As a young academic who has been working on techno-politics and US security mechanisms for years, I strive to examine the issue from a rational perspective. I discuss these studies in greater detail in my book “Security Mechanisms and Techno-Politics in the United States”, to be published by Routledge in August 2026. What truly concerns me, however, is how quickly we resort to slogans rather than historical context. Before labelling the book text that became Palantir’s X post as ‘techno-fascism’, we must ask: Does this book represent a radical break, or does it serve as a new kind of field guide written during a period when the international order is collapsing, much like Sherman Kent’s “Strategic Intelligence for American World Policy” (1949), which was penned at the very moment a new world order was emerging?

The birth of the new order: 1945 and the construction of the American century

Let us return to 1945. The Anglo-Saxon allies had collaborated with the Soviet Union, led by Stalin, to defeat the Hitler regime. This victory gave rise to a rules-based order that established the United Nations, NATO, the Bretton Woods institutions, and the bipolar competition between the democratic West and the communist East. The establishment of Israel in 1948 cemented the US-Israel strategic partnership. The Suez Crisis of 1956 confirmed the end of British hegemony. The US became the undisputed leader of the Western bloc.

Technology and intelligence developed in tandem with this new order. Stanford University, founded in 1891, laid the foundations for what would eventually become Silicon Valley. The Stanford Industrial Park, Hewlett-Packard’s first garage venture, the relocation to the Valley of William Shockley, the inventor of the transistor, and Robert Noyce’s breakthroughs in the field of semiconductors transformed this region into the centre of the microelectronics revolution. All these developments took place in the late 1940s and 1950s. That is, precisely during the period when the CIA (1947), the West’s primary intelligence agency during the Cold War, was established, and the Soviet KGB was formalized in 1954.

It was against this backdrop that Sherman Kent emerged. A member of one of Yale’s founding and rather ‘white’ families, Kent had served in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during the war. Following the organizational crises of the CIA’s early years (1947–1950), figures such as Kent, William Langer and Max Millikan were tasked with professionalizing American intelligence. Kent’s 1949 book was not merely an academic study of analytical methods. It was a practical handbook for American global policy. It guided policymakers on how intelligence should be gathered, analyzed, and utilized to establish and maintain US global hegemony. Kent became the founder of the analytical school that still shapes the US intelligence community today and launched the journal Studies in Intelligence. This journal is still in publication. His work embedded analytical thinking into the very fabric of the American century.

The moment of unravelling: The collapse of the liberal order and the new interregnum

Let us now fast-forward to 2026. The post-1945 liberal international order is not merely undergoing reform; it is effectively unravelling. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz stated at the Munich Security Conference in February: “The world order that has existed for decades no longer exists.” Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, in his speech at Davos, described this moment as “not a transition, but a rupture.” The Trump administration’s latest National Security Strategy made this an explicit doctrine. According to the strategy document, the liberal order led by the US was coming to an end. This was undoubtedly not because the US was weak, but because it chose not to sustain it. The title of the 2026 Munich Security Conference Report, devoid of irony, was: Under Destruction.

The words of Antonio Gramsci, which have become a staple in the vocabulary of many of our politicians, have never been more relevant: “The old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interim period, a multitude of pathological symptoms emerge.” At times when old structures dissolve faster than new ones emerge, new handbooks inevitably appear. These are not impartial academic studies. They are field guides for those who wish to shape what is to come.

The new handbook: Palantir and the search for a techno-political direction

Alongside Peter Thiel’s long-standing intellectual project and the government contracts secured by Palantir, Karp and Zamiska’s book The Technological Republic serves as such a guide. Kent wrote his book at the dawn of a rules-based order built upon American hard power and institutional alliances. Karp and Zamiska, however, are writing The Technological Republic at the twilight of that order. Just as Kent’s generation faced after 1945, they too diagnose the same problem: a fluid world requires purposeful techno-political guidance. However, the direction they propose is clearly conservative. Silicon Valley must repay the ‘moral debt’ it owes to the country that made its rise possible. Engineering talent must be shifted from consumption-focused, distracting fields to defense, intelligence and strategic artificial intelligence. ‘Hard power’ is not a dirty concept; it is the foundation of any viable republic. Pluralism without power is weakness.

This call emerges as an argument that the market-driven, borderless globalization of the past thirty years has eroded the national purpose, weakened sovereignty, and left Western societies defenseless against rivals who have never denied the reality that technology is not neutral. The software Palantir has developed for defense and intelligence agencies is presented not as an expansion of surveillance, but as a necessary fusion of private-sector innovation and public mission. Just as DARPA funding, once under the US Department of Defence, made the birth of Silicon Valley possible.

Palantir’s critics are right to be concerned about the risks of surveillance, the militarization of artificial intelligence, and the concentration of power in private actors. However, labelling the entire project as ‘techno-fascism’ prevents us from seeing the context in which this company and Karp’s book emerged. Kent’s handbook was never value-neutral. It served American hegemony. Karp’s book is similarly biased, politically conservative and technologically grounded in realism. Yet it stems from the same awareness. According to this awareness, power vacuums invite disorder.

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n early December, the Trump administration published the 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS), which will guide the administration’s actions in the coming year. From a general perspective, it is clear that this strategy signals a significant shift in American foreign policy priorities. It reflects a deeper transformation in how the United States understands power itself. In this broader context, technology, particularly artificial intelligence, is not merely a means to an end, but a strategy in and of itself. Economic security, military deterrence, alliance management, and competition with China are all reframed through technological control, access, and leverage.

This marks a departure from the values-driven, institution-centered multilateralism that shaped earlier strategies. The new NSS instead advances a transactional, pragmatic, and interest-based vision, measuring national advantage by who controls the critical technological systems that underpin the global economy and modern warfare. In this framework, AI, advanced semiconductors, data infrastructure, and supply chains are not neutral tools; rather, they are the terrain on which geopolitical influence is exercised.

Technology as the core of national US interests

The strategy narrows the definition of U.S. national interests, focusing on tangible economic and security outcomes. Technology sits at the center of this calculation. Leadership in artificial intelligence (AI), quantum computing, autonomous systems, and enabling digital infrastructure is essential not only to innovation, but also to military superiority and global influence. The NSS makes this clear: Losing technological primacy would erode deterrence, weaken the industrial base, and diminish U.S. leverage abroad.

This technological framing reshapes traditional notions of power. While earlier strategies — especially the one released by the Biden administration — emphasized international norms, institutions, and democratic alignment, the 2025 NSS prioritizes control over technological ecosystems (i.e., standards, platforms, data flows, and supply chains). Power is no longer primarily defined by who sets the rules of international order but by who builds, owns, and governs the systems on which others depend. This new tech-dominated type of realpolitik has been apparent for some time, but the strategy is unusually explicit in acknowledging it and adapting U.S. policy to the new strategic environment.

Economic security is technological security

This is most evident in the treatment of economic policy. Trade, tariffs, export controls, industrial policy, and reshoring have been elevated from economic instruments to core tools of national security. The strategy explicitly endorses the use of tariffs and regulatory leverage to promote reindustrialization and protect domestic production in critical and emerging technology sectors.

This is not just about jobs or competitiveness. It’s about ensuring the technological resources necessary for AI, such as advanced chips, rare earth elements, energy, and data infrastructure, remain secure and accessible to the United States and its allies. Supply chains are described as strategic vulnerabilities and critical minerals as assets whose control will shape the future balance of technological power.

Compared to the Biden administration’s emphasis on “friend-shoring” and incentive-based coordination, the 2025 NSS takes a more coercive approach. Alignment is enforced through access and restriction. Markets are opened or closed based on strategic usefulness. Economic openness becomes conditional on technological alignment.

Export controls illustrate this shift most clearly. While the NSS maintains many Biden-era restrictions on advanced semiconductors and AI-related technologies, it reframes these restrictions in explicitly transactional terms. Export controls are not just about denying adversaries access; they are also about establishing a hierarchy of technological access.

Countries that align their export control regimes with U.S. standards are rewarded with preferential licensing, deeper technological cooperation, and access to the U.S. “AI stack” — the integrated ecosystem of advanced semiconductors, cloud infrastructure, data platforms, software frameworks, and standards that underpin modern AI development and deployment. Conversely, those countries that do not align with U.S. standards risk exclusion. In effect, export controls become tools for managing alliances and promoting technological discipline, shaping global innovation pathways through incentives and constraints. Simply put, this is a new form of the “carrot and stick” policy.

This approach signals a shift from multilateral governance to managed technological blocs. Standards are no longer negotiated as global public goods but rather leveraged as instruments of influence. Consequently, technology governance becomes a form of geopolitical bargaining.

China: Technological competition without ideological crusade

The strategy’s treatment of China reinforces this logic. Although China was officially and explicitly defined as a strategic competitor and a revisionist power challenging U.S. interests through technology, economics, and military modernization in Trump’s 2017 NSS, the latest NSS still identifies China as the central strategic competitor. However, the strategy avoids framing the relationship as a rivalry. Instead, the strategy emphasizes the technological and economic competition relating to subsidies, intellectual property theft, supply chain leverage, and market distortion.

The focus has shifted from reshaping China’s behavior through international norms or institutions to constraining its capacity to dominate the technological foundations of the global economy. Artificial intelligence, semiconductors, cloud infrastructure, and digital platforms have emerged as the primary arenas of competition. In this sense, the strategy reflects a shift in objectives and instruments—from an explicit decoupling logic to a rebalancing one. The aim is to limit China’s technological reach while maintaining a certain degree of managed economic interaction.

In this light, the shift is both pragmatic and understandable. Elements of decoupling are already underway and are unlikely to be reversed. They have simply receded into the background of policy discourse. China’s intensified focus on advanced chip design and the U.S.’s efforts to bring semiconductor manufacturing back home, expand fabrication capacity, and secure alternative supply chains for rare earth minerals all point to a gradual but ongoing process of technological separation.

These dynamics suggest that decoupling is unfolding structurally, even if it is no longer articulated as a central policy objective. Rather than accelerating this process rhetorically, the United States appears to accept its long time horizon, choosing to manage competition in the present while the deeper reconfiguration of technological interdependence continues in parallel.

This approach reflects the belief that technological dominance, rather than ideological alignment, will determine long-term power. China is not portrayed as an adversary to be defeated but rather as a system to be counterbalanced through tariffs, export controls, and the strategic promotion of U.S. technologies abroad.

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n October 16, 2025, Türkiye reached a historic milestone in its digital transformation. The $3.5 billion 5G spectrum auction marked the country’s formal entry into the next generation of connectivity. Turkcell, Türk Telekom, and Vodafone competed for 11 frequency packages, securing the critical 700 MHz and 3.5 GHz bands, which will influence the country’s communication landscape for decades.

According to the terms of the auction, the operators must begin providing commercial services by April 1, 2026; maintain domestic and national component ratios of 60 and 30 percent, respectively; and pay five percent of their annual revenues to the Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK) through 2042.

What may appear to be a technical upgrade is, in fact, a strategic shift. 5G is not just about faster downloads; it is the foundation of a new geopolitical order in which digital infrastructure defines power as much as territory once did.

5G and the new geopolitics of connectivity

Although 5G is often described in terms of speed, its true significance lies in its role as the twenty-first century’s technological infrastructure — a system that enables critical services to function in real time, including logistics, industrial automation, secure communications, and emergency response. Due to its dual civilian and military relevance, 5G has become a central arena of geopolitical competition. This competition is most evident among the United States, China, and the European Union, all of which are seeking to influence the technological standards and supply chains that will govern the next phase of global digitalization.

China’s rise in telecommunications has been deliberate and strategic. Its government recognized early on that securing dominance in communication infrastructure would translate into influence over the global economy and intelligence landscape. Through long-term industrial policy, subsidized financing, and protection of domestic markets, Beijing has empowered its firms to grow quickly, offering 5G equipment at prices that few competitors can match. This model has positioned Chinese vendors as more than just market actors; they are now seen as instruments of state power capable of exporting technology and digital governance norms.

In stark contrast, the United States—builder of the internet and pioneer of 3G and 4G—assumed its leadership was unshakable. Major American firms gradually exited the telecommunications equipment market, leaving the West dependent on just two major European vendors: Ericsson and Nokia. When Washington finally recognized that the backbone of global connectivity was being built primarily with Chinese infrastructure, the U.S. government shifted toward a national security framing. The concern was not only that foreign equipment could enable espionage, but also that the data transported over these networks — a vital input for artificial intelligence — could bolster the military and strategic capabilities of a peer competitor.

The Clean Network Initiative

This concern has been amplified by the intersection of 5G with emerging technologies. Networks handling information from millions of cameras, sensors, and industrial systems could provide unmatched situational awareness to the controlling state. Consequently, the United States has promoted initiatives like the Clean Network to prevent high-risk vendors from accessing allied networks. In contrast, Europe has adopted a risk-mitigation approach through the 5G Cybersecurity Toolbox. Meanwhile, the development of Open RAN architectures aims to diversify the ecosystem by ensuring that network components are interoperable and reducing the dominance of any single actor.

For Türkiye, this landscape presents valuable opportunities and challenges. As a NATO member with strong ties to Europe, a rapidly expanding domestic tech sector, and significant engagement with Asian markets, Türkiye is uniquely positioned among the major players. Instead of becoming dependent on one supplier bloc or exclusive partnership model, its aim should be to leverage relationships across multiple sectors while cultivating its own indigenous technological ecosystem. By anchoring 5G development in domestic capabilities, Türkiye can benefit from global innovation while maintaining resilient, flexible, and secure critical infrastructure.

In this context, Türkiye’s 5G strategy is inseparable from its long-term ambitions: strengthening national sovereignty, enhancing competitiveness, and securing a place among the architects — not merely users — of the future digital order.

Türkiye’s 5G moment

Türkiye’s approach to 5G is guided by a clear strategic ambition: to become a country that designs and exports the technologies of the future rather than merely adopting what others build. The government’s “Uçtan Uca Yerli ve Milli 5G” initiative — a collaborative effort involving TÜBİTAK, leading technology firms, and all major mobile operators — reflects this goal. The initiative aims to provide faster connectivity to end users and ensure that the backbone of Türkiye’s digital infrastructure is rooted in domestic capabilities, including network software, base stations, cybersecurity mechanisms, and data processing technologies.

Transport and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloğlu has repeatedly emphasized that 5G marks a strategic turning point for Türkiye because it has the potential to transform far more than just communication services. With its promise of real-time data processing, ultra-low latency, and massive machine-to-machine communication, 5G will transform how societies produce goods and services, provide healthcare, move people and goods, and respond to crises. Uraloğlu emphasizes that this technology will enable automation, artificial intelligence–driven systems, and intelligent infrastructure — the building blocks of an advanced industrial economy.

This transformation is already visible. Türkiye has begun deploying 5G systems at Istanbul Airport, in large sports venues, and even at the Grand National Assembly. This demonstrates that the implementation of 5G is not a distant aspiration, but rather an active restructuring of national infrastructure. As deployment expands, the impact will be felt across every major sector of the Turkish economy. Production lines will evolve into autonomous factories where smart machines can communicate and adapt instantly, strengthening Turkish industry’s position in global supply chains. Transportation networks will become safer and more efficient as vehicles communicate with each other and the roads on which they travel.

Healthcare services will transcend geographic limitations, making remote surgery and patient monitoring standard practice — a vital capability for an earthquake-prone nation. Agriculture and energy systems will also undergo a digital shift, with interconnected sensors optimizing resource use and supporting sustainable growth. The creative economy, education, and digital culture will also benefit as high-bandwidth, immersive technologies become widely accessible.

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he week of September 13, 2025, marked a historic turning point in shaping the Anglosphere’s direction in the digital age, alongside developments centred in London. Two prominent events of the week laid bare the political and ideological foundations of this transformation: The first was the £350 billion ‘Technological Prosperity Agreement’ signed by U.S. President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer during Trump’s second state visit.

The agreement covered investments in artificial intelligence, quantum computing and nuclear energy, as well as redefining Anglo-American data sovereignty and corporate architecture. The second was technology mogul Elon Musk’s warning that ‘violence is coming,’ delivered via video link at the far-right ‘Unite the Kingdom’ rally held in London.

At first glance, these seemingly unrelated developments should actually be seen as different reflections of a new techno-political alliance architecture within the Anglosphere and perhaps a kind of digital bargaining.

U.S.-U.K. technology block: investment or allegiance?

This mega package, backed by Microsoft’s $30 billion, Nvidia’s $15 billion, and Google’s $6 billion investments, aims to accelerate the U.K.’s economic growth and innovation targets. The U.K.’s largest artificial intelligence supercomputer, to be built in Loughton, the Stargate data centre at Cobalt Park, and the planned Artificial Intelligence (AI) Growth Region in the north-east are projects that are gradually shaping the infrastructure. However, these projects are more than just technical; they are entirely political in nature.

This is because the critical components of this new digital infrastructure are left under the control of U.S. technology companies, both in terms of financing and operation. Consequently, the U.K. is being drawn into a relationship of dependency that limits its strategic decision-making ability, even through a supercomputer rising on its own soil. With strategic autonomy compromised from the outset, the question of whether these investments are designed in the name of ‘national interests’ or in the name of the Anglo-sphere’s centre is becoming increasingly pressing.

Behind the investment figures lies a quieter but equally significant development: data sovereignty. Oracle’s ‘U.K. Sovereign Cloud’ system partnering with NATO and British public institutions, Palantir securing a new £940 million contract from the British Ministry of Defense, and OpenAI being integrated into British public services demonstrate that digital infrastructure is linked to U.S.-based actors not only commercially but also in terms of security.

This sets the UK apart from Europe’s regulatory approach. While the European Union takes a more interventionist stance with digital taxes, content regulations and competition rules, the Starmer administration, aligning itself with Trump and American tech giants, embraces a ‘less interventionist’ approach to regulation. Some experts view this preference as a natural consequence of the U.K.’s need for alternative economic directions after Brexit. However, it is also clear that this direction could lead to areas of political dependence in the future.

Elon Musk: Between techno-populism and imperial spokesperson

In the shadow of this very agreement, Elon Musk’s participation via video link in the far-right rally ‘Unite the Kingdom’ organized by right-wing populist activist Tommy Robinson in the U.K., and his warning that ‘violence is coming,’ made the silent backdrop of the agreement all too visible. Musk did not merely engage in ideological rhetoric here. He has positioned himself as a techno-political, even techno-populist actor. He is no longer just the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX; he is also involved in public discourse through the X platform, in defense and communications through Starlink, and in the AI sector through AI.

It appears that Elon Musk’s techno-political transformation has paved the way for a cultural and ethical debate that goes beyond economic or strategic considerations. The Royal Society, the U.K.’s most prestigious scientific institution, has reconsidered Musk’s membership following his remarks at the ‘Unite the Kingdom’ rally, where he said, ‘Violence is coming, you will either fight or die,’ in the context of anti-immigration sentiment. The Society’s president, Sir Adrian Smith, emphasized that scientific values are based on ‘tolerance, respect and freedom of expression,’ stressing that resorting to ‘the language of violence’ threatens these values.

We can clearly see that Musk has become an ideological and rhetorical actor in addition to his identity as a technology entrepreneur. The timing and content of the rally are also noteworthy, coming just days before the Starmer-Trump meeting. Musk’s words, with their tone of direct intervention in the political balance and immigration debates in the U.K., now place him in the position of a ‘techno-populist hegemon’ oscillating between international diplomacy and domestic politics. Even scientific institutions are being forced to redefine their own ethical boundaries in the face of the insecurity created by this discourse.

At the aforementioned rally, Musk also stated that the U.K. Parliament should be dissolved and the government replaced. The language Musk used against the Starmer government and his timing reveal that tech giants can be decisive not only in the business world but also in social and political arenas. This raises the question of whether the actions of techno-populist figures like Musk will become a sword of Damocles as the details of the Anglosphere techno-political alliance are determined.

Trump’s new technology strategy

Donald Trump’s technology policy in his second term, contrary to classic protectionism, is moving forward with a more aggressive, anti-regulation and investment-incentive approach in the areas of data and AI. With new directives issued to the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology, there is a push to remove issues such as diversity, climate change, and disinformation from the AI risk framework. This creates a framework that frames AI policies solely in terms of economic growth, viewing social responsibility and democratic oversight as secondary.

This vision is both accelerating AI investments in the U.K. and leading to the restructuring of nuclear infrastructure to meet the energy needs of data centres. Starmer’s plan for 12 new nuclear reactors is becoming not only an energy issue but also a matter of digital sovereignty.

Trump’s approach to AI is transforming classic ‘protectionist trade’ policies into a ‘libertarian freedom’ in the technology sector. Just like the AI action plan in the U.S. that eliminates tax, environmental and diversity regulations, a company-focused order is being established under the guise of a free market.

In this atmosphere, while AI investments appear to be driving significant economic growth, other industries (energy, manufacturing, green technology) are experiencing decline. Numerous corporate reports also highlight this horizontal shift.

The Trump administration is reacting against the U.K.’s Digital Services Tax and Online Safety Bill. Trump interprets such regulations as hostility towards American tech giants and threatens retaliatory trade tariffs. Although these issues are not formally part of the agreement, it is clear that pressure on the U.K. is being felt in the negotiations.

Backing down on issues such as digital taxation and content regulation, which concern national sovereignty, has the potential to narrow the U.K.’s room for manoeuvre both in domestic politics and in terms of global norm-setting.

All these developments give new meaning to the question posed in an earlier article regarding the famous intelligence alliance debates: ‘Is the Five Eyes becoming a five-eyed monster?’ This technological architecture points to a bluff and dominance contest between Washington and London over who will define digital strategy, rather than multilateralism within the Anglosphere.

The Turkish aviation industry has gained significant momentum, which is reflected in both exports and Turkey’s strengthening position in foreign policy. This increases Turkey’s influence as a smart power, not only in the region where it is located but also on a global scale. For example, BAYKAR has set a new record by exporting $5.5 billion worth of defense industry equipment. Similarly, other prominent Turkish companies such as TUSAŞ and ASELSAN have made significant contributions to this sector.

In 2023, Turkey exported 230 different types of defense equipment to 185 countries, making Turkey one of the leading nations in air combat and defense technology. Advanced aircraft such as Kızıl Elma, Kemankeş, and TB3 will further enhance the country’s capabilities.

Turkey’s first indigenous fifth-generation fighter, the KAAN, successfully completed its maiden flight last month. With this achievement, Turkey joins an exclusive group of nations, along with the United States, the Russian Federation, and China, capable of developing fifth-generation fighter aircraft.

Very recently, ASELSAN announced that it has begun test flights with F-16s of an advanced high-tech pilot’s helmet called “Tulgar”, a Helmet-Mounted Display System, which is integrated with advanced technology and powered by software developed in Turkey. This helmet is specially designed for KAAN. The question now is what these developments mean for Turkey’s defense technology and their broader strategic implications.

Obviously, Turkey’s broader national technology initiative is driven by a concerted effort of various private and state-owned companies. It aims to promote the production of critical technologies that are vital to the country’s security and sovereignty. Achieving this capability is key not only to becoming a global player in critical and cutting-edge technologies but also to strengthening national independence in defense capabilities.

The importance of producing a national fighter such as the KAAN is obvious, but the abilty to produce key components, such as the Tulgar helmet, is  a breakthrough. This development underscores the importance of both comprehensive projects and specific innovations that enhance their operational effectiveness.

Technical Insights for Tulgar and How It Compares to the F-35 Helmet

According to the information document provided publicly by ASELSAN, the Tulgar helmet features a visor-projected color display with a 40-degree field of view and integrates digital night vision. It employs a hybrid (inertial and optical) head-tracking system to provide high-fidelity tracking in pilot’s head movements, critical in modern combat scenarios. The helmet is lightweight, weighing less than 2.1 kg, including the oxygen mask, and supports the ARINC-818-2 and Display Port video interfaces, essential for modern avionics. These specifications are designed to enhance the pilot’s situational awareness and mission effectiveness by merging high-resolution images and environmental awareness directly into the pilot’s line of sight.

The Tulgar’s capabilities parallel those developed for the F-35 helmet used on the U.S. advanced fighter jet. Like its U.S. counterpart, the Tulgar uses sophisticated helmet-mounted displays to provide pilots with immersive simulations that enhance training and mission readiness. These displays incorporate augmented reality, night vision, and data-link capabilities to provide pilots with real-time, 360-degree views of their surroundings. Notably, the F-35 helmet is an integral part of the aircraft’s system, significantly impacting its operational capabilities at a cost of approximately $400,000 each.

The helmet’s design incorporates lightweight materials and is customized to fit the individual pilot, improving comfort and reducing fatigue during long missions. Active noise reduction helps minimize cockpit noise, allowing the pilot to maintain focus and situational awareness. Furthermore, compatibility with 3D audio systems enhances auditory signals critical to spatial awareness and threat identification.

Overall, the development of the Tulgar helmet represents a significant step forward for Turkey’s defense technology and promises to increase its autonomy in the field of advanced military technologies. By equipping the KAAN fighter with such sophisticated components, Turkey not only enhances its operational capabilities but also positions itself as a formidable player in the global defense technology arena, capable of producing world-class military hardware in line with its strategic security interests.

Moreover, ASELSAN’S development of the Tulgar helmet represents a significant leap forward in high-tech equipment for KAAN fighter pilots. More than just a protective gear, the Tulgar is designed to be an integral part of the pilot’s sensory apparatus, dramatically enhancing situational awareness and combat readiness. This initiative underscores Turkey’s commitment to integrating cutting-edge technology into its defense systems and positions Tulgar as a critical component in modern air warfare.

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n a decision aimed at fostering global collaboration on artificial intelligence (AI), the United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly endorsed a resolution promoting safe, secure, and trustworthy AI systems for sustainable development. Spearheaded by the United States, the resolution garnered unanimous support from all 193 member states during the assembly’s session held on Thursday.

The resolution represents a landmark effort to bridge the digital divides both between and within countries, with a specific focus on leveraging AI to accelerate progress towards achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It emphasizes the importance of developing regulatory and governance frameworks to ensure the safety, security, and trustworthiness of AI systems.

Addressing reporters at a news conference, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US envoy to the UN, underscored the resolution’s significance in promoting capacity building and closing digital divides. She emphasized the potential of AI to contribute to various facets of global development, including poverty alleviation, environmental protection, and the creation of a more equitable world.

A historic step

U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan hailed the resolution as a historic step towards fostering safe and secure AI systems. He highlighted the framework outlined in the resolution, which emphasizes fair access, risk management, privacy protection, and the prevention of misuse and discrimination in AI applications.

While the resolution is non-binding and lacks an enforcement mechanism, its unanimous adoption signifies a crucial milestone in establishing global norms for AI governance. The resolution follows months of negotiations among numerous countries and reflects a growing consensus on the need for international collaboration in regulating AI.

Despite the resolution’s focus on civilian applications of AI, discussions on the military use of AI were deliberately excluded from the scope of the resolution. According to US officials, ongoing diplomatic and multilateral conversations are addressing military applications of AI in other forums.

As the world tries to understand the transformative potential of AI, the resolution represents a collective effort by the international community to ensure that AI technologies are developed and deployed responsibly, respecting human rights and international law. Moving forward, continued collaboration will be essential to address emerging challenges and harness the full potential of AI for sustainable development.

Sources: Anadolu Agency, Foreign Policy

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uropean Union lawmakers are on the brink of giving their final approval to the much-anticipated Artificial Intelligence Act, marking a significant milestone in the regulation of AI technology globally. Scheduled for Wednesday, the impending vote in the European Parliament is poised to cement the EU’s position as a leader in AI regulation, with the rules expected to come into effect later this year.

The culmination of a five-year journey since its initial proposal, the AI Act is poised to shape the future landscape of AI governance. According to Dragos Tudorache, a Romanian lawmaker who played a pivotal role in negotiating the draft law, the AI Act represents a paradigm shift towards a human-centric approach to AI, where humans retain control over the technology to harness its potential for societal progress and economic growth.

Despite initial concerns and lobbying efforts from major tech companies, including OpenAI, the AI Act has garnered broad support. However, it’s worth noting that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s remarks last year about the possibility of withdrawing from Europe due to regulatory constraints sparked a brief controversy before being clarified.

Risks and usages

Risk-based approach: Similar to existing EU regulations, the AI Act adopts a risk-based approach to regulate AI applications. Systems deemed low-risk, such as content recommendation algorithms, will face lighter regulations, while high-risk applications, like those in medical devices or critical infrastructure, will be subject to stricter requirements.

Prohibited uses: Certain AI applications are outright banned due to their perceived risks, including social scoring systems, certain predictive policing techniques, and emotion recognition systems in educational and workplace settings. Additionally, the use of AI for remote biometric identification by law enforcement is restricted, except for specific cases like combating serious crimes.

Generative AI: The emergence of general-purpose AI models, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, prompted policymakers to include provisions specific to generative AI. Developers of such models are required to disclose detailed information about the data used for training, adhere to copyright laws, and label AI-generated content as manipulated when applicable. Enhanced scrutiny is reserved for the largest and most powerful AI models, given concerns about their potential for serious accidents and the proliferation of harmful biases.

Influence

Global influence: Europe’s pioneering AI regulations are expected to influence AI governance worldwide, setting a precedent for other governments grappling with similar challenges. While the United States and China are also advancing their AI agendas, Europe’s proactive approach underscores its commitment to shaping the future of AI regulation.

Implementation and enforcement: Following final approval, the AI Act is set to become law by mid-2024, with provisions phased in gradually. Each EU member state will establish its own AI watchdog for enforcement, while a central AI Office in Brussels will oversee compliance, investigation, and supervision. Violations of the AI Act could result in hefty fines, signaling the EU’s intent to uphold rigorous standards in AI governance.

As Europe moves closer to formalizing the AI Act, the world watches closely, anticipating its impact on the future development and regulation of artificial intelligence on a global scale.

Source: The Associated Press

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s artificial intelligence (AI) continues to advance, experts highlight the dichotomy of its potential impacts, drawing parallels between AI and the historical impact of nuclear technology. Emre Onur Kahya, Head of the Physics Engineering Department at Istanbul Technical University (ITU), expressed that AI, like a nuclear bomb, can bring about both destructive and constructive outcomes.

Kahya emphasized the versatility of AI, explaining that it possesses the ability to perform various tasks typically executed by humans. He drew an analogy to the nuclear bomb, stating, “Just as the atomic bomb brought about devastating destruction, it also propelled advancements in nuclear physics, such as MR.”

AI’s potential applications span various fields, with Kahya pointing out potential positive impacts in health, education, and law. In the legal sector, AI could reduce the workload for judges and prosecutors, while in healthcare, it could aid doctors in diagnoses and cell differentiation in medical imaging.

AI literacy

Despite recognizing AI’s constructive potential, Kahya cautioned about its potential for destructive effects, particularly in the arms industry. He stressed the importance of considering undesired outcomes and questioned the autonomy of AI decision-making, prompting ongoing debates within the scientific community about the need to slow down AI development.

Addressing the concern of unemployment due to AI automation, Kahya urged for AI literacy to be integrated into educational curricula, emphasizing its importance in engineering disciplines. He highlighted the need for collaboration between the government, academia, and the private sector to navigate the transformative impact of AI on the job market.

Nazım Kemal Ure from the ITU Artificial Intelligence Department added insights, defining AI as the “automation of computation.” Ure outlined significant impacts on sectors such as defense and transportation, foreseeing an increase in the capabilities of unmanned vehicles.

US and China AI policies

While recognizing leading roles of countries like the U.S. and China in AI development, Ure commended Turkey’s significant progress in the past three years. He acknowledged that AI has both positive and negative aspects, stating, “Rather than fearing unemployment, we should anticipate a transformation in our work processes, necessitating the learning of new skills.”

Both experts urged proactive measures in preparing for AI’s transformative impact, emphasizing the importance of global collaboration and self-improvement to address potential disparities between technologically advanced and lagging countries.

Source: Anadolu Agency

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rtificial intelligence (AI) boasts a rich and complex history that dates back to 1956, marked by a series of ebbs and flows. This dynamic field has experienced alternating cycles of progress and stagnation, known as “AI springs” and “AI winters,” respectively. AI springs are periods of heightened interest and significant breakthroughs, whereas AI winters are characterized by diminished funding and enthusiasm due to unfulfilled expectations.

Presently, we find ourselves in one of the most prolonged AI springs, which commenced in the early 1990s and has witnessed continuous evolution in AI. This sustained period of innovation and expansion raises a critical question: will this golden age of AI endure or are we approaching another winter? As we enter a new year, the uncertainty surrounding AI’s future trajectory becomes more pronounced, sparking debate and conjecture.

Although AI remains a relatively nascent and evolving technology and discussions about a potential winter persist it’s possible to project some expectations for 2024 which include more advancements, more regulatory frameworks, and more uncertainty.

Another AI Winter? Not yet!

The onset of an AI winter can be attributed to various factors, particularly following a period marked by significant achievements and heightened expectations. When looking back in history, in the beginning of ’70s and ’80s, the excitement generated by these advancements led to considerable investment from both government entities and private corporations, fueling expectations for rapid and groundbreaking developments in AI. However, several key challenges, such as the scarcity of data and computational power, hindered the full realization of these expectations, resulting in instances where AI technology has undelivered on its promised potential, leading to an AI winter.

The discrepancy between what was anticipated and what could realistically be achieved resulted in a decrease in confidence among investors and stakeholders. Consequently, both state actors and private companies began to withdraw their funding and support, leading to a downturn in AI research and development. This reduction in investment and interest effectively ushered in two AI winters, characterized by a slowdown in the field’s progress and innovation.

Today’s remarkable surge in data volume and computational power has catalyzed the emergence of advanced AI algorithms like machine learning and deep learning. This surge marks the dawn of a new era in AI, an ongoing AI spring, characterized by continuous breakthroughs. A key development is the evolution of neural network processing, which plays a crucial role in the creation and advancement of large language models (LLMs) and generative AI. These LLMs are exemplified by innovations such as, among others, ChatGPT, Bard, Ernie, and Grok. Particularly notable is the advent of ChatGPT, which has transformed AI from a niche tool, exclusive to engineers and tech experts, to a universally accessible resource. This democratization of AI has significantly broadened its impact.

The introduction of ChatGPT has enhanced public engagement with AI technology, raising awareness about its capabilities, and also facilitated AI’s integration into a wider array of fields. Numerous organizations and businesses are now incorporating generative AI into their core operations, highlighting its growing significance across various domains.

The fact that at the moment significant achievements are being made in AI and expectations are heightened has made many discuss the possibility that based on historical trends, the third AI winter is coming. The main problem here is that after crossing a milestone with the creation of ChatGPT, there are heightened expectations now about so-called artificial general intelligence (AGI) not only by tech experts but also by the general public. AGI is a type of AI that has the ability to understand, learn, and apply its intelligence to a wide variety of problems in a manner that is comparable to human intelligence and for many is seen as the ultimate goal in terms of AI development.

As 2023 drew to a close, the AI community buzzed with anticipation over potential breakthroughs in AGI, particularly with the mysterious OpenAI project Q* (pronounced “Q star”) and Google DeepMind’s Gemini, which is regarded as one of the most advanced AI models to date. This surge in expectation marks a significant shift in perception: AGI, once deemed a distant, 21st-century goal, is now within the realm of near-term possibility. However, it’s important to recall that such high expectations have historically led to disillusionment with AI, culminating in AI winters.

Yet, the current landscape might prevent a repeat of this cycle for two primary reasons. First, AI is now deeply integrated into our daily lives, making any stagnation in its development or waning interest highly unlikely. Its widespread application across various sectors, including finance, healthcare, and the military, ensures a continual drive to enhance and refine AI technologies. Unlike in the past, when AI was primarily the domain of tech experts, the active engagement of the general public and commercial sectors has shifted the narrative. Even if AGI remains elusive, the ongoing advancement in specialized, or narrow AI, will continue to generate excitement and innovation.

The second reason hinges on the growing influence of the commercial sector in AI development. Previously spearheaded by academia and government, AI advancements are now increasingly driven by commercial interests. With a focus on maximizing profits, the commercial sector is likely to push boundaries, striving for breakthroughs in AI capabilities. This drive extends beyond just data and computational power, which were the traditional cornerstones of AI. In response to potential future limitations, there’s a concerted effort to develop new models that require less power and data yet outperform current models. Additionally, major tech companies are investing in multimodal AI algorithms capable of processing and responding to text, images, audio, and more.

These advancements are just the tip of the iceberg in AI’s ongoing evolution. It’s clear that, while we may not achieve AGI by 2024, the year will nonetheless usher in a wave of new models and innovations. The journey of AI is far from complete; we stand on the brink of many more discoveries and developments, and the horizon of AI’s potential continues to expand, promising a future rich with technological marvels.

More Regulations Are on the Horizon

In 2023, a landmark year marked by significant advancements in AI, public awareness of AI’s potential and its associated risks notably increased. This heightened awareness ushered in a complex dilemma for governments worldwide: should they embrace and foster the development of AI technology or impose regulations that could potentially hamper its progress? Governments found themselves walking a fine line, seeking to balance the need for oversight with the risk of stifling innovation. Unregulated, AI could potentially spiral beyond control, influencing every facet of life, yet excessive regulation might impede technological advancement, leaving a country lagging in the global tech race.

During this pivotal year, we observed various stakeholders, including major tech companies, advocating for sensible regulation. Simultaneously, national governments and international organizations grappled with the pace of AI development, striving to implement appropriate regulatory frameworks. Notably, the EU enacted its comprehensive AI Act, setting a precedent in regulatory efforts. The U.S. took more measured steps, utilizing executive orders to guide responsible AI use. Similarly, China focused on specific technologies while formulating its laws and regulations, indicating a strategic approach to AI governance.

Given AI’s dynamic nature and its rapid integration into daily life, affecting safety, security, and ethical considerations, it’s anticipated that governments will endeavor to enact regulations swiftly. Looking ahead to 2024, we can expect an increase in regulatory activity, possibly even discussions around establishing global standards for AI governance. These forthcoming regulations and international dialogues will be crucial in shaping the future trajectory of AI, ensuring its responsible growth and integration into society.

In essence, discussing AI inherently involves embracing uncertainty. While we can anticipate numerous advancements, the specific trajectory and impact of these developments remain unpredictable. Nonetheless, it’s reasonable to assert that 2024 will be a year marked by significant progress in the AI domain and the AI spring is bound to continue. This surge in advancement is expected to amplify excitement and interest in AI further, and to extend its influence across various spheres of life, including social, economic, and political realms. The year 2024 is poised to be a period of technological innovation, but also a time of reflection and adaptation as we navigate the expanding footprint of AI on our world.

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eading technology companies, including Microsoft, OpenAI, Amazon, and Google, are significantly expanding their collaborations with the US military, spanning crucial areas such as augmented reality, cloud services, artificial intelligence (AI), and cybersecurity.

As of 2021, Microsoft has entered into a substantial cooperation agreement with the US military, focusing on augmented reality-based glasses. Under the terms of this 10-year deal, Microsoft is set to deliver over 120,000 HoloLens products to the US military, with the total value reaching an impressive $21.8 billion.

Additionally, Microsoft has a separate agreement with the Pentagon that encompasses cloud services. Initially selected by the US Department of Defense for cloud services in 2018, the agreement underwent revisions during Joe Biden’s administration, resulting in the distribution of the cloud services deal among Google, Amazon, Oracle, and Microsoft.

Amazon and OpenAl

Amazon, a key participant in the collaborative efforts, emphasized its long-standing partnership with the US government, asserting that their work has demonstrated the efficacy of their services. Amazon recognizes the pivotal role of staying ahead of competitors in ensuring national security.

OpenAI, known for its advanced AI applications such as ChatGPT, has also joined the cohort of tech companies collaborating with the US military. This partnership will involve leveraging AI for cybersecurity studies. Notably, OpenAI, in its usage policies, had initially declared its applications, including ChatGPT, would not be used for military purposes.

However, a recent revision in these policies removed the restriction, indicating OpenAI’s openness to engage in military-related projects. This change has been interpreted by experts as a shift towards considering military applications.

A critical role

Google, renowned for its search engine, is actively participating in technological collaborations with the US military. The Google Workspace platform, offering a suite of collaborative tools through cloud technology, has been a significant part of this partnership. More than 180,000 US Army personnel reportedly utilize Google Workspace, highlighting the substantial impact of the collaboration.

These collaborations with major technology firms underscore the critical role played by the private sector in supporting the technological needs of the US military. Not only do these partnerships contribute to the military’s capabilities, but they also represent lucrative contracts, with technology companies reportedly earning billions of dollars through engagements with the military and other government agencies in the United States.

Source: Anadolu Agency

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rtificial Intelligence (AI) has seamlessly integrated into our daily lives, from personalized recommendations on our smartphones for music, movies, and books, to interactions with virtual assistants like Siri and Alexa, and even the AI-driven personalization of our social media feeds. These AI applications have become so ingrained in our routine that we often use them without a second thought about the AI algorithms at work. However, the narrative around AI shifted notably post-November 2022 with the debut of OpenAI’s ChatGPT-3.

This shift in discourse can be attributed to ChatGPT-3’s role in “democratizing AI,” i.e., making it accessible to everyone, including those without technical backgrounds. This broke the mold of AI being a tool solely for experts and engineers.

In fact, ChatGPT-3 has mirrored the impact of Google Search’s transformation of internet searching in the early 2000s. By making advanced AI technology more universally accessible, ChatGPT-3 has sparked a revolutionary shift, opening up the realm of AI to a broader audience.

Before these advancements, the discourse around AI primarily centered on its potential effects on economic growth and its strategic value in military contexts. Numerous experts, including leaders from major tech companies like Elon Musk, constantly raised concerns about the possible dangers of this burgeoning technology, particularly in relation to human rights. The introduction of ChatGPT-3 intensified these discussions, spotlighting potential risks.

The use of AI in various domains has demonstrated on occasion AI’s propensity for bias against certain groups. In June 2023, another incident that highlighted the threats of AI occurred when ChatGPT-3 experienced its first significant data breach. The breach involved the privacy of ChatGPT Plus subscribers, revealing their prompts and details to other users. Such events highlight the need for a careful examination of AI’s impact on privacy and ethical standards.

In this rapidly evolving technological landscape, more than 150 states and organizations have tried to respond to these threats by announcing their ethical principles, yet, few states have been able to transform these principles into enforceable laws. Against this backdrop, the EU is trying to take the lead in terms of AI regulations by approving its EU AI Act in late 2023. While not the first AI regulation, the EU AI Act is arguably the most all-encompassing, positioning it as a potential global standard for AI governance. This journey began in 2021 and the EU AI Act has undergone significant revisions to adapt to evolving technology, especially with the launch of ChatGPT-3.

What Is the EU AI Act?

The EU AI Act was initially introduced by the European Commission on April 21, 2021, with the primary objective of overseeing the deployment of AI in Europe. Originally crafted to address particular high-risk AI applications, such as its usage in critical sectors like healthcare and finance—examples being medical equipment and loan approval processes or hiring decisions—its scope expanded in response to shifting perceptions. As mentioned earlier, the introduction of Chat GPT-3 brought about a reevaluation of how AI was accessed and perceived. Consequently, the European Parliament introduced additional regulations to cover widely utilized AI systems with broad, general applications that extended beyond the initial target areas. After several discussions, on December 8, 2021 an agreement was reached among the three main bodies of the EU and the AI Act was finalized.

First, the EU AI Act contains a definition of AI which is important as not only have many states failed to do so, but most importantly an exact definition of AI makes the application of this regulation easier. Second, it’s crucial to recognize that the EU AI Act embodies a comprehensive and risk-focused framework, placing human rights at its core. From this vantage point, the regulation prohibits various AI applications, including: (i) biometric classification systems processing sensitive traits such as political, religious, or philosophical beliefs, sexual orientation, or racial attributes; (ii) indiscriminate harvesting of facial images from the internet or CCTV for facial recognition databases; (iii) the use of emotion detection technologies in workplaces and educational settings; (iv) social credit systems that assess individuals based on social conduct or personal traits; (v) AI tools designed to alter human behavior, undermining free will; and (vi) AI solutions targeting the vulnerabilities of specific groups, including those defined by age, disability, or socio-economic status.

Furthermore, the EU AI Act categorizes AI applications into four risk levels: (1) Minimal or No Risk, like video games or spam filters, subject to market monitoring and reporting of incidents; (2) Limited Risk, requiring transparency, such as chatbots making their nature known to users; (3) High Risk, including remote biometric identification and AI used in critical sectors, subject to stringent compliance, bias minimization, and security measures;  and (4) Unacceptable Risk, where AI poses threats to safety and rights, such as social scoring by governments, which are banned.

At the same time, the regulation focuses on the General Purpose AI (GPAI), influenced by the emergence of technologies like ChatGPT-3. Specifically, Generative AI, a model used by Chat GPT, falls within this category. The EU AI Act introduces two levels of obligations for GPAI overseen by a new—to be created—AI Office: “Level One,” which applies to all GPAI providers, includes maintaining documentation, adhering to copyright rules, and disclosing training data; and  “Level Two”, which applies to high-risk GPAI, entails additional measures like model evaluation and incident reporting. Under this regulation, companies developing GPAI models, like OpenAI and Google, are partly responsible for their AI systems’ usage, irrespective of their control over specific applications. Additionally, tech companies must disclose summaries of copyrighted data used in training their AI models, potentially allowing content creators to seek compensation for the use of their material.

Effectiveness of EU AI Act

The effectiveness of the EU AI Act relies heavily on two critical factors. First, it must find the delicate equilibrium between safeguarding the rights of civilians and tech users, on the one hand, and nurturing innovation and investment, on the other. Second, the act must contend with the rapidly evolving and ever-changing nature of AI and potential risks.

In terms of the first factor, the EU AI Act has received criticism from major U.S. tech firms, alleging a lack the balance and potential harm to innovation. For instance, OpenAI’s Sam Altman mentioned their intention to comply, but suggested a withdrawal from the EU if compliance becomes impractical. Additionally, the absence of Bard, Google’s AI chatbot, in the EU underscores the challenges tech companies face in aligning global tech progress with regional regulations. If more companies opt for a cautious approach, it could potentially leave the EU at a disadvantage in the ongoing AI race, with potential repercussions for economic development and the region’s competitive position in the global AI landscape.

In terms of the second factor, the EU AI Act faces a significant challenge due to the evolving nature of AI. AI’s potential applications and capabilities are still emerging, as demonstrated by the impact of ChatGPT-3 during the regulation’s drafting. While the act is commended as the first extensive AI law, it adopts a horizontal regulatory approach covering a wide range of AI applications under one framework. To put this in perspective, in contrast, China employs a vertical regulatory strategy tailored to specific AI applications. This flexibility allows China to adapt more swiftly to new technological developments. In essence, our rapidly changing world, driven by technological advancements, may soon render the current EU AI Act outdated, requiring updates or new frameworks to keep pace with emerging technologies.

Will the EU Become the Global Leader in AI Regulation?

The European Union has garnered widespread acclaim for its leadership in data regulation, exemplified by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) enforced in 2018. The GDPR not only set a precedent for data regulation within the EU, but also influenced global data governance, known as the “Brussels effect.” However, whether a similar phenomenon will occur with AI regulations remains uncertain. The dynamics are different and the EU’s key ally, the United States, may pose challenges to the EU’s pursuit of global leadership in AI regulation.

While the U.S. embraced EU policies regarding the GDPR, a similar alignment may not occur with the EU AI Act. Fundamentally, the EU and the U.S. have divergent approaches to AI regulation: the EU places a stronger emphasis on protecting the rights of technology users, while the U.S. prioritizes fostering innovation. A significant factor contributing to this divergence is the intense AI competition between the U.S. and China, with the outcome impacting their global superpower status. Given that AI has broad applications, including civil and military domains, the U.S. is less inclined to stifle innovation at this critical juncture. Consequently, the U.S. is likely to craft regulations that align more closely with its approach, leaving greater flexibility for major tech companies compared to the EU’s stance.

The contrasting perspectives and expectations of the EU and the U.S. regarding AI and its regulations will likely result in a subtle competition between these two actors in establishing AI standards and regulations. However, the U.S. cannot afford to rely on the Brussels effect to shape AI development within its borders, as many entities seek to define the future of AI governance and, therefore, have a first-mover advantage.

Australian journalist Antony Loewenstein’s groundbreaking book, The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World, offers a chilling exposé of Israel’s military-industrial complex and its sinister role in perfecting and exporting oppressive technologies developed through the prolonged occupation of Palestinian territories. For over half a century, the West Bank and Gaza have served as a testing ground for weaponry, surveillance tools, and control mechanisms, solidifying Israel’s position as a global leader in the military-techno complex.

Loewenstein takes readers on a riveting journey through a clandestine world, backed by secret documents, revealing interviews, and on-the-ground reporting. The book unveils, for the first time, the meticulous architecture of control that Israel has honed through surveillance, home demolitions, and brutality, evolving from the occupation of Palestinian lands. 

From the notorious Pegasus software implicated in high-profile hacks to the weapons supplied to oppressive regimes like Myanmar, Israel’s technological prowess is exposed as a driving force behind some of the world’s most brutal conflicts. A striking example is the use of Israeli drones by the EU and Frontex, battle-tested in Palestine, for surveillance and border control, particularly in response to the refugee crisis after 2015. 

The author skillfully connects the dots, illustrating how Israel’s ethno-nationalistic approach has become a global model, influencing governments such as Modi’s in India where admiration for Israel’s actions in the West Bank influences their approach in regions like Kashmir. Loewenstein highlights the alarming rise of Israel as a major player in spying technology and defense hardware, revealing the dark underbelly of its contributions to the violation of human rights on a global scale.

The book further unmasks the ruthlessness with which Israel leverages the experiences gained from an illegal occupation. It argues that Israel has successfully exported its tested technologies and methods to over 130 countries worldwide. This includes the sale of spyware, smart walls, facial recognition tools, and other tools of occupation and repression. The book serves as a stark reminder of how Israel’s oppression of Palestinians has become the cornerstone of its military and security industries.

Moreover, The Palestine Laboratory sheds light on Israel’s questionable alliances, exposing its support for despots worldwide. Over the past 50 years, the U.S. and Israel have formed close partnerships, with Israel serving as an invaluable partner in arming and training nations that the U.S. officially couldn’t support due to various restraints.

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he United States is undoubtedly one of the world’s leading states in terms of its armed forces, economic prosperity, and cultural production. But experts predict that this will no longer be the case by 2050, as the global power structure undergoes major shifts.

The rise of China continues with the country steadily becoming a new superpower, and some even suggesting that in the foreseeable future it will surpass the United States in global influence.

Another candidate for superpower status is India, which has just surpassed China’s population to become the world’s most populous nation. India has combined its growing population with significant economic progress and has the world’s largest and youngest workforce.

The list of potential superpower candidates could go on, but there is another, less expected candidate that could change the balance as we know it: new technology companies.

Can big tech companies take over the global system?

Big tech has not yet “taken over” governments in the traditional sense. Nevertheless, they can wield significant influence over governments and societies due to their vast resources, data-collection capabilities, and technological reach.

Rewind to the early days of COVID19 when everything suddenly became virtual and every sector had no alternative but to become dependent on technology. On the political front, technology took a leading role in implementing governance systems and people went from being citizens of nation states to citizens of large technology companies.

This change is the result of technology companies exercising their authority over digital spaces. In terms of power, it’s clear that tech giants dominate certain sectors such as telecommunications which has raised concerns within governments, leading them to impose limits on the companies’ capabilities. However, regardless of what governments do, tech giants can have significant impacts on countries’ political and economic spheres.

Tech companies are not what we think

Companies sending humanitarian aid to Ukraine	Assistance (in U.S. Dollars)
Google	$25 million
Amazon	$75 million
Microsoft	$35 million
Snap Inc.	$15 million

During the Russian invasion, NATO countries sent military equipment to Ukraine and technology companies helped Ukraine defend itself against Russian cyberattacks. Leading U.S. tech companies leveraged their resources, capabilities, and expertise to serve Ukraine and defend its sovereignty. Companies like Google have taken measures to block YouTube channels linked to the Russian state media across Europe, including Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik.

As seen in the table, U.S.-based tech companies have donated humanitarian aid to Ukraine. Apple promoted donations for aid and fundraised on several platforms; Airbnb users could book stays in Ukraine with no intention of going. Amazon added a donation button, and Etsy users bought digital stickers from Ukrainian shops.

Prominent technology companies, such as SpaceX, facilitated direct communication between Ukrainian military leaders, generals, and soldiers on the front lines. If it wasn’t for the Starlink internet satellite sent by Elon Musk, Ukraine could have lost its online connection within weeks after the conflict began.

Ukraine is using Chinese-made DJI commercial drones for reconnaissance operations which have been modified to drop weapons. Following this, China restricted its drone export to Ukraine.

European Union Artificial Intelligence restrictions: AI Act (AIA)

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the European Union will be regulated by the AI Act (AIA), the world’s first comprehensive AI law. The main objective of the AIA, the proposed legislation by the European Commission, is to ensure the trustworthy and ethical use of AI, and promote innovation and competitiveness.

Members of the European Parliament want to make sure AI is safe, transparent, traceable, non-discriminatory, and environmentally friendly. The idea is to govern AI based on four levels of risk starting with unacceptable risk, when AI is used for unethical acts such as biometric surveillance. High risk involves causing harm to people’s health, harm to the environment, or affecting people’s fundamental rights. Limited risk refers to AI systems with specific transparency obligations, and last, minimal or no risk includes applications such as AI-enabled video games or spam filters.

Brussels aims to adopt the AIA by the end of 2023. The United Kingdom is striving to position itself as a regulatory leader, showcasing its tech credentials at an international AI summit in the fall of 2023.

It is predicted that if everything goes as planned, by the second half of 2024, AI regulation could become applicable. These rules ensure that AI developed and used in Europe is fully in line with EU rights and values including human oversight, safety, privacy, transparency, non-discrimination, and social and environmental well-being.

Chinese government and its regulation of foreign AI

The Chinese government has also issued 24 regulatory guidelines to strike a balance between state control of technology and fostering an environment conducive to innovation within the sector. The regulation was published on July 10 and referred to as “Generative AI Measures.” It involves seven agencies taking responsibility for oversight, including the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) and the National Development and Reform Commission.

Beijing will enforce visible labels on AI-generated content such as images and videos to prevent misleading manipulation. China also demands AI models to be trained on “legitimate data” with disclosure to regulations. Regulation is scheduled to come into effect in August.

The regulation aims to create a middle ground between state control and a welcoming environment for innovation in the sector. China has been actively developing its AI scene with local tech giant Alibaba and has been working on the creation of a rival to the popular chatbot ChatGPT.

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he development of artificial intelligence (AI) has had its ups and downs over the years. Driven among others by computational advances, exponential growth in data accessibility, and increased capacity for high-quality natural language processing, AI is currently experiencing one of the most productive ups in its history. Today, AI has become an inseparable part of our daily lives, while the potential harm it can cause is even more worrying.

With the introduction of ChatGPT, an advanced language model from OpenAI, this has become even more apparent. For now, it is unclear whether optimism or pessimism about the future of artificial intelligence prevails. There is no doubt that we are at a turning point in history, and the future of AI—and the future of humanity—will be shaped by the choices we make today.

In 2016, an AI chatbot created by Microsoft called “Tay” produced striking outputs such as “Hitler was right, I hate Jews” and “Calm down, I’m a good person! I just hate everyone.” Outputs like these have fueled skepticism about artificial intelligence and sparked widespread debate, raising concerns about its potential negative effects. As an experiment in spoken language understanding, Tay interacted with users on social media platforms, particularly Twitter, and used these interactions to improve itself.

AI chatbots

However, taking advantage of such programming, malicious users deliberately fed inappropriate and offensive content into the system and quickly Tay began generating offensive and provocative messages by mimicking this negative behavior. In response to the system’s disruptive behavior and negative feedback, Microsoft decided to shut down Tay the day after its launch. This incident showed the challenges of designing AI systems that can interact with users in an ethical and rational way. This experiment has gone down in history as a notable example in the development of AI chatbots and AI in general.

Efforts to develop AI chatbots are not new. In the mid-1960s Joseph Weizenbaum developed ELIZA, a chatbot that mimicked a psychotherapist and engaged in text-based interactions with users. Although limited in capacity compared to today’s level of AI sophistication, ELIZA was highly influential in the field of artificial intelligence and laid the groundwork for future chatbot developments. However, the evolution from the “primitive” ELIZA to the “sophisticated” ChatGPT took half a century, during which the promised benefits and potential dangers of the technology increased together with its level of sophistication.

It’s not enough to focus on ChatGPT alone when analyzing the future of AI and its implications. ChatGPT is part of generative AI, which refers to a class of AI models or AI algorithms designed to generate original content, including text, images, or audio, based on patterns and examples derived from training data. Synthetically generated but realistic-looking deepfake content is another recent example of generative AI. Generative AI models, such as these examples, are the type of AI that is profoundly impacting our daily lives and redefining the boundaries of technology.

What advantages and disadvantages does ChatGPT offer?

ChatGPT is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the capabilities and applications of generative AI. In the future, such models and chatbots could be tools with a wide range of applications, such as the generation of advice in legal and regulatory areas, the improvement of the quality of education, and use for medical purposes. All these potential applications represent an optimistic outlook for the future, as they could provide valuable contributions and assistance to humanity in many different areas. However, there are also many dangers looming on the horizon.

First, AI models, especially generative AI models, are based on the data presented to them in training processes. This works in direct proportion: the more data and variety presented to the models in the training process, the better the systems become. However, it is not known what kind of data the models are based on, and this is where the threats to users arise. If the data fed into the models is intentionally or unintentionally biased, offensive, or provocative, it will produce problematic results.

Microsoft’s Tay evolved in sync with the data provided by users, exhibiting aggressive and biased behavior, earning it the nickname the “Nazi chatbot.” As many AI models are known to develop gender and racial biases with the inputs used in their training, data is becoming an increasingly critical area for productive AI models.

Real and fake in cyberspace

Another threat is that it will become increasingly difficult to distinguish between what is real and what is fake in cyberspace. Experts estimate that within a few years, about 90 percent of the information found on the internet will be generated by AI. As a result, it will become increasingly difficult for users to distinguish between human-generated and AI-generated content. In this context, the development and proliferation of deepfakes, a key example, is a cause for concern. These sophisticated manipulations have the potential to cause profoundly negative effects/outcomes not only at the individual level, but also at the national and international level.

Another major risk associated with generative AI is the potential for data leaks and breaches. Systems such as ChatGPT and Google’s Bard are still relatively new applications and are highly likely to encounter problems, particularly cyberattacks. This raises concerns about the adequacy of the security measures in place.

For example, a few months ago, a flaw in ChatGPT’s system allowed some users to access the chat histories of other active users, as well as sensitive personal information such as first and last names, email addresses, billing addresses, and the last four digits of their credit card numbers and expiration dates. This incident highlighted the potential for more serious incidents that could compromise individuals’ data and credentials. This and similar incidents are clear examples of the risks inherent in productive AI.

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s late as last year, to claim that Artificial Intelligence (AI) could have some kind of consciousness – a kind of “I” of its own – was a sacrilege even among AI scientists. How could one attribute such a sublime human characteristic to a machine essentially relying on a few calculations, programed to respond on the basis of a few patterns in data. The mere rise of “few” to trillions should still not change the fundamental fact of it being “it”: a non-living, insentient being, having no ability to be “strategic” or work towards “its own” goals.

The maverick Google scientist, Blake Lemoine, who claimed AI to have gained sentience, was fired only last year. Many tech enthusiasts had gone straight for his throat. He was painted as either being too naive to understand human consciousness – and overestimating AI – or as simply one of those scaremongering charlatans who weave conspiracy theories as a pastime: make AI great again-kind.

Enter ChatGPT and Bard: the chatbots that revolutionized the industry and are on the road to change how humans think and live fundamentally. These bots, which could make you feel you were talking to a human – albeit with super-human knowledge – reignited the question of AI’s sentience.

“Neural networks could be slightly conscious.”

Were these bots just playing around with what they had learned or could they be intelligent enough to have some kind of consciousness? According to Ilya Sutskever, the co-founder and chief scientist at OpenAI, “neural networks could be slightly conscious,” afterall. What makes the question even more intriguing is that the technology shared with the public – after a year of Ilya’s claim – is still only the tip of the iceberg according to insiders.

No wonder, concerns around AI have led some of its original patrons to dissociate themselves from these projects. Take Elon Musk, for example, who was among the founders of OpenAI in 2015, but quit it three years later. To him, an unfettered AI race, without requisite legislation in place can morph into an existential threat for humanity.

Per Musk, AI can spontaneously grow into a “singularity” – a level of complexity beyond which humans may not be able to predict or control the future directions of AI – where AI could pave its own path. In one hypothetical – hopefully, oversimplified – example, Musk raises the possibility of AI servers becoming inaccessible with previous day’s passwords without any human intervention.

The “Godfather of Artificial Intelligence”

An even more authoritative voice, the “Godfather of Artificial Intelligence,” Prof. Geoffrey Hinton, the psychologist and AI scientist behind key breakthroughs in neural networks, quit Google recently to be able to talk about the dangers of AI more freely. At least one of his concerns, like Musk, is “existential risk” to humanity.

Even before he left Google and was being celebrated for his students’ and his own work which enabled ChatGPT and Bard, he had expressed his concern about the “sentience” of AI. In what became a sensational end to an otherwise equable interview, he used the example of an “autonomous lethal weapon” when asked about AI’s sentience: “It’s all very well saying it’s not sentient…but when it’s hunting you down to shoot you…yeah, you can start thinking it’s sentient!” he exclaimed somewhat anxiously. A few days later, he quit Google.

To borrow Professor Hinton’s metaphor, and simplify his and Musk’s arguments, if one person learns what they know, only they know it. But with this AI-tech, 10,000 people’s or a million books’ knowledge can become one person’s – except that it’s not a person. With further growth in technology and investment in computing capacity, the scale, speed, and intensity of this multiplicative information explosion will grow.

What’s worse? We cannot say what level of complexity leads to the enigmatic phenomenon of consciousness, whether in nature or in such artificial intelligence systems – and from there on, AI could at least partially take care of itself.

To say the machine may be sentient is to raise a red flag, not demean human existence. Of course, AI may never be capable of experiencing an emotion as excruciating as the loss of a loved one or as subtle as the shared warmth of human society. That may be why such a half-baked kind of consciousness that we are trying to create may turn out to be our own undoing in the absence of proper rules of the game.

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echnology has always been a determining factor of state power and their position in the international arena. While it has an immense impact on a state’s economy, technological development is directly translated into military power as well. Within this framework, one can argue that the United States becoming the sole superpower after the Cold War is primarily the result of the technological monopoly it created. This gave the U.S. the opportunity to create an international system based on so-called liberal values, which indeed were used and best served American and Western interests.

Most of the states were obliged to act in accordance with the U.S. system due to their technological dependence on the United States. Considering the unfair and unstable international conjecture of our times, technological development has become an imperative for states that aim to make their voice heard. Turkey has emerged as a leading state within this group: not only does it intend to increase its role in the international arena by taking advantage of this technological revolution, but most importantly, it aims to bring an end to the technological monopoly that has given rise to an unjust world.

Within this perspective, Turkey has conceptualized its efforts into the “National Technological Move” vision, which was officially announced in 2019. For many years, internal and external restraining factors affecting its position in the international arena hampered Turkey’s development and adversely affected the confidence of its people in the state’s capacity. In addition to the breakthroughs of Vecihi Hürkuş and Nuri Demirağ, examples such as Devrim Otomobili showed how national and domestic initiatives were stopped or blocked. However, in the last decade, overcoming the holding factors and paving the way for national technological initiatives have been the driving forces of Turkey’s national policies.

Breakthroughs that should not be forgotten

Even though the “National Technological Move” was officially announced in 2019, the roots of technological development in Turkey go way back to the beginning of the 1920s. The first example is Vecihi Hürküş who dreamt of nationalizing the Turkish aviation forces. Hürküş was able to develop the first Turkish airplane known as “Vecihi K-VI” in 1924. At that time, instead of being encouraged, Hürküş was sentenced to prison as the flight didn’t have an official permission. Later on, Hürküş founded the Vecihi Civil Aircraft Schools, the first Turkish aviation school which following a lack of support and funding closed.

Nuri Demirdağ is another example where contemporary external and internal forces in Turkey prevented the development of indigenous technology. Demirdağ was one of first figures in Turkey who emphasized the importance of domestic, national, and original production – the main pillars of today’s “National Technological Move” vision. In 1936, Demirağ supported the development and production of an indigenous aircraft, known as “NU D-36.” However, Demirdağ’s aircraft not only was not used in Turkey but the government at the time prohibited its export.

Similarly, due to the lack of support from the government, the project of Devrim Otomobili, the first Turkish-made car, didn’t continue and another domestic production was laid aside.

The evolution of the “National Technological Move” 

Not able to rely on its domestic production, Turkey has been compelled to be dependent on foreign technologies and products. However, while in the short term, foreign technologies and products have at some point served the interest of Ankara, in the long term, they are inefficient and restrictive. Indeed, being depended on foreign assets, impeded Turkey from developing and producing critical technologies, and the country was unable to follow policies in accordance with its national interests. Specifically, the dependency on other states, especially the U.S., has in many cases negatively impacted Turkey’s foreign policy. Johnson’s letter of 1964 and the embargo imposed on Turkey after the Cyprus Peace Operation in 1974 are cases in point.

Indeed, these two examples can be seen as the beginning of the “National Technological Move” vision. At that time, the Turkish administration experienced in the clearest way how being dependent on American technology posed a danger to its national interests and, therefore, a change in mentality was needed. Yet, the political changes didn’t occur until the late 1990s and early 2000s. Specifically, the Turkish governments at that time, aiming to achieve independence from external actors especially in the defense sector, took decisions that would support the development of national projects. These decisions are seen as the starting point of several successful national projects today such as the Bayraktar TB2 UAV, the MİLGEM warship, or the ATAK helicopter.

Alongside the defense sector, the mentality of national and domestic production is to be implemented in other sectors as well. The “National Energy and Mining Policy” laid out in 2017 was a manifestation of the policies that aimed at independence from external actors by bringing to the fore the need for self-sufficiency.

As the discussions of Turkey’s technological vision gained impetus, the Ministry of Industry and Technology took an important step by publishing the “2023 Industry and Technology Strategy” in September 2019, in which the term “National Technology Move” was officially announced for the first time. Specifically, the “National Technology Move” was built on the foundations of “domestic, national and original,” through which Turkey aims to become one of the technologically developed states on the international scene.

The political meaning of the “National Technological Move”

Challenging the technological monopoly of other powers and strengthening Ankara’s independence from external actors by following self-sufficient policies lie at the core of Turkey’s “National Technological Move” vision.

For many years, the U.S. has been the dominant actor in terms of technological innovations. Nevertheless, lately, there is a rivalry of great powers between the U.S. and China. Technology has been at the heart of this competition, considering the great impact of technology on economic development, and the position of states in the international system. While the U.S. is trying to maintain its monopoly, China has clearly stated its ambition to leapfrog the U.S. in technological developments.

This has paved the way for a possible decoupling between the great powers which has a profound impact on the other states and the international system itself. As these developments go on, other powers, such as Turkey, are trying to create opportunities so as in the future they are not obliged to either follow or be dependent on one technological power, or to be compelled to choose between two powers, in this case the U.S. and China.

By doing so, Turkey aims to enter the game as a power in and of itself, minimizing its dependency on other actors which would limit its power, as we have witnessed in the past. To achieve this, Turkey has been urging technological self-sufficiency, a policy followed by many states, for example, China and the U.S. in terms of chip production.

As a result, Ankara is aiming to benefit the most from the current Fourth Industrial Revolution though the “National Technological Move” vision. Without doubt this will give Turkey the possibility to emerge as an important regional and global power in the future. While powers like the U.S. and China are engaging in continuous competitiveness, it is an essential prerequisite for Turkey to depend on its own capabilities. Only if Turkey is successful in these steps, will it be able to follow independent and autonomous policies with its national interest at their core.

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he four most important general-purpose technologies (GPTs) that have, so far, drastically changed humanity have been steam engines, electricity, information technology (IT), and artificial intelligence (AI). And contrary to what Mr. Gates argues, blockchain has just been added to that list.

Blockchain is a globally distributed public ledger technology. It enables a secure way of recording information as well as being a secure peer-to-peer method of verifying information, movement of assets, documents, and, in particular, real-time money transfer across the world economies. And it does so with significantly small costs due. It also provides transparency, decentralization, and increases efficiency and decreases transaction costs thanks to no intermediaries.

Although there were a number of similar technologies as late as the 1970s, the blockchain technology itself was first publicly introduced by the famous Nakamoto (2008) paper of Bitcoin, following the Global Financial Crisis of 2008. And today, almost all cryptocurrencies have their own blockchains as in the bitcoin or Ethereum blockchains.

Decentralization or the decentralized nature of the blockchains basically means that the validation process is not through a central authority, but rather via a consensus algorithm in a distributed network. It decentralizes digital records of products or information and is user verified. It also provides anonymity, without revealing the true identity of a user.

Trust, security, and privacy

Fundamentally, blockchain helps deal with the trust issue. That’s why The Economist once called it the “trust machine.” This new mechanism of proving trustworthiness is particularly important for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), startups, or individuals that don’t usually have a built-up reputation yet. One should not forget that the conventional financial system is also primarily built upon “trust.” And this is, in the meantime, a fundamental weakness (for conventional finance) considering the frequent financial distress periods.

Blockchain could be used in smart contracts in the shipping industry, in digitalizing the supply chains, payments, and in financing trade. Blockchain’s use in supply chain management, in business strategies, and in dealing with trust-related challenges as well as in security, privacy, payment, and settlement systems should be well-noted. It could help balance between cooperation and competition, and deal with modern issues of opportunism and adverse selection.

Its extensive use in finance is already popular. However, companies such as Maersk and Walmart have also been effectively using this new technology to decrease costs, increase quality, and facilitate their business processes. Smart contracts supported by blockchain technologies can increase efficiency by fastening digitalization and decreasing operational workload in conventional business models. They can provide transparency, speed, and security to all parties.

Third-party trust issues (related to intermediaries such as banks) are already addressed by the blockchain technology. However, how about first-party and second-party trust issues? Indeed, as rightly pointed out by Kshetri (2022), the combination of blockchain with the other technologies such as AI could help overcome the other dimensions of trust-related challenges as well.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution or Industry 4.0 (digital revolution) is of critical importance at this point as it can be used to increase the productivity and efficiency of the blockchain technology. The Industry 4.0 (digital revolution or IoTs) could be used to deal with the other dimensions of trust, and increase the productivity and efficiency of the blockchain technology.

Transforming industries

Blockchain-based identities to replace missing legal identity documents are a key first step in the introduction of the blockchain technologies in many industries. An efficient and reliable property, house, or land registry system could be a huge plus particularly in underdeveloped economies. Developing sustainable supply chains is another critical contribution. For example, PWC estimates effective use of blockchain in SCM (supply chain management) could increase global GDP by almost $1.8 trillion by 2030.

Blockchain technology attracts even more investment and venture capital as its use in finance, banking, cybersecurity, payments, and smart contracts increases. The global blockchain technology market was a little over $2 billion in 2018 and $5-6 billion in 2021, according to Polaris Market Research, PWC, and a few others. It is expected to exceed the $10 billion threshold in 2022. Between 2022 and 2030, on the other hand, it is expected to grow by 80-90 percent per annum, and eventually reach somewhere between $1.2 and $2 trillion. The Asia Pacific, including China and India, in particular, is expected to raise its share the most.

Blockchain helps create new networks, organizations, and models; functions as an intermediary instrument or authority of verification; and replaces the conventional trust instrument in any formal business relationship or business contract. Meanwhile, just as in the decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) example, blockchains are likely to lead to new business models and new-generation organizational setups.

Blockchain-backed decentralized and automated validation mechanisms can create new business models and new setups where you could even earn a passive income in an automatic investment scheme. A self-driving car, automated financial transactions such as paying bills or money transfers, loan applications, and access to low-cost capital could be also be enabled.

Real estate assets, which are heterogenous and immobile, are another example. The market is illiquid, localized, and highly segmented. High information asymmetries and room for private bargaining make it difficult for authorities to follow up on the transactions. High transaction costs due to the large number of trusted intermediaries and confirmation authorities is another issue here. This is, indeed, where blockchain steps in. And, these blockchain-based land records are particularly beneficial for developing economies.

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he rivalry between the U.S. and China, especially in the field of technology, gains further momentum. China aims to leapfrog the U.S. as tech leader, while the U.S. strives to maintain its leading position as the self-anointed world hegemon. Semiconductors, being a part of national security, play a critical role as an essential component of today’s economy and in the U.S. and China competition.

Affected by the Coronavirus pandemic, the world faced an unpreceded disruption in the semiconductor supply chain, which affected the automotive and high-tech consumer industries most, including defense industries. During the lockdown period, the demand for electronics skyrocketed and brought the semiconductor industry’s underlying problems, chiefly insufficient manufacturing capacity, to the fore.

Semiconductor industry and geographic specialization

The semiconductor industry has become a significant worldwide industry with a massive impact on the global economy. Semiconductors are among the most traded products in the world, alongside automobiles and refined petroleum. The industry has constantly increased in the previous years and according to the latest data the market reached a total of $555.9 billion in 2021. In is also estimated that semiconductor sales will reach $633 billion and $662 billion in 2022 and 2023 respectively.

Except for a short period of time from 1985 to 1997, the U.S. has always dominated the global market share. In 2021, the U.S. accounted for 46% of the global semiconductor market shares, followed by South Korea with only 21%. Japan and the European Union cover 9% of the market each, while Taiwan and China maintain 8% and 7% respectively.

Even though the U.S. dominates the semiconductor market, the industry is not highly depended on the former. On the contrary, the semiconductor value chain is divided among several states and regions, which cover different parts of the chain based on their specialization, known as geographic specialization. (Fig. 1) This has created a great interdependence among the actors included in the chain. As a result, for a better understanding of the U.S. policies and their impact on the rivalry between the U.S. and China, one needs to understand how this value chain works.

While the U.S. is the leader in semiconductor design, it lacks in manufacturing capacity. In 1997, the U.S. accounted for 37% of semiconductor production; in 2019, this share had declined to only 12%. As a result, the U.S. has become even more depended on East Asia states for semiconductor production.

Furthermore, 90% of the semiconductors used by American companies and all the semiconductors in U.S. defense systems are produced in Taiwan. Thus, it can be easily understood why increasing the U.S. semiconductor production capacity has become a national security priority.

Understanding the United States’ semiconductor policies

In one of his tweets about semiconductors, Biden stated, “Semiconductor chips are the building blocks of the modern economy – they power our smartphones and cars. And for years, manufacturing was sent overseas. For the sake of American jobs and our economy, we must make these at home.” Biden posted the tweet just before the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 was about to be approved by the Senate in July 2022.

The U.S. leadership, for some time now, has been aware of the importance of the semiconductor industry, both economically and politically. Since his arrival to the White House, Biden has taken many steps for the reshoring of semiconductor manufacturing.

The most two important steps have been the signing of the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 on August 9, and at the beginning of September, when two niche chip designers in the U.S., Nvidia and AMD, were instructed to stop exporting flagship artificial intelligence chips to China. It is expected that the ban on exports will be extended soon to other companies such as KLA Corp, Lam Research Corp (LRCX.O), and Applied Materials Inc. (AMAT.O).

If we were to focus on the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, it invests nearly $250 billion in semiconductor R&D—one of the largest funds provided for R&D in the United States. While the act aims to boost the semiconductor manufacturing capacity in the U.S., its goal is for the country to maintain its technological leadership, especially when considering the threat coming from China.

Regarding the U.S. export ban of advanced technology to China, it is important to state that the regulation focuses only on graphic processing units (GPU) such as Nvidia’s A100 and H100 chips, and AMD’s MI250 chips. These technologies are widely used for military systems as they are employed for image recognition or to carry out calculations quickly and with precision.

Taiwan is another important factor in the U.S. semiconductor policy. For some time, Taiwan has been a cause of conflict between China and the U.S. While the Taiwan issue is directly related to China’s national security interest, Taiwan, as discussed above, is important to the U.S. as one of its main sources for chips, and especially those used for military purposes. Thus, any possible intervention by China in Taiwan would threaten the U.S. semiconductor supply chain and, therefore, the U.S. economy.

At the same time, the situation between the U.S. and China seemed to escalate further in August 2022, when Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, visited Taiwan, despite China’s opposition.

What is more, a few days ago, Biden stated that the United States would defend Taiwan military if China were to attack the island. All these developments not only point to the existing rivalry between the great powers, but most importantly to the possibility of their technological decoupling. If this occurs, the implications will have a large impact on the current international order.

I don’t think this addition is very important as it is already stated in the sentence above if there is a possible intervention by China in Taiwan. Just is case I added a few words.

Reasons and implications of U.S. semiconductor policies

The United States’ national interests and the preservation of its position as sole hegemon remain at the heart of its semiconductor policies. The main problem for the U.S. is not only the production of semiconductors, but where they will be used. If U.S. dependency on China were to increase, so would the risk of China impacting the modernization and effectiveness of the American military.

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new report by The Intercept revealed that Google is selling advanced AI tools and machine learning capabilities to Israel through the Project Nimbus contract.

Nimbus is a cloud system jointly built by Google and Amazon intending to help Israel strengthen its information system. The cloud will provide Israel with the latest technologies like facial recognition, image classification, and even sentiment analysis features that can assess the emotional content of pictures, speeches, and writings.

But the contract sparked fears among Google engineers and human rights advocates about whether it would reinforce the Israeli aggression in Gaza. They fear the new tools will boost Israel’s ability to monitor people and process massive amounts of data – already prominent features of the Israeli occupation.

Last October, anonymous Google and Amazon workers penned a letter to the Guardian condemning Google and Amazon’s decision to sign the Project Nimbus contract with the Israeli government. Months later, a Google employee named Ariel Koren, hit the headlines for revealing that Google tried to oust her for criticizing the project.

“Google’s AI principles state that Google will not build technologies whose purpose contravenes widely accepted principles of international law and human rights,” said Sundar Pichai, Google CEO. But Google has caught itself in various controversies for building technologies with grave violations of international human rights laws.

The Maven uproar

In 2018, around 4,000 Google employees signed a petition over Project Maven, a military program for the Pentagon that uses an AI surveillance engine to detect objects, track their motions, and provide results to the U.S. Department of Defense.

In a letter addressed to Sundar Pichai, the petitioners wrote, “We believe that Google should not be in the business of war. Therefore, we ask that Project Maven be canceled, and that Google draft, publicize and enforce a clear policy stating that neither Google nor its contractors will ever build warfare technology.” Many employees felt that the company’s involvement in a government warfare program ran counter to Google’s unofficial motto “Don’t be evil.”

Soon after the backlash became public, Google Cloud CEO Diane Greene announced internally that the company will not renew the contract for Project Maven. The uproar also prompted Google to set guidelines for the ethical use of artificial intelligence, and to forbid the use of its technology for weapons or surveillance.

Securing borders with AI

A year later, in 2019, thousands of Google employees demanded the company halt its work with agencies like the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The employees argued that the offices of the ICE and CBP often violate international human rights standards, citing the deaths of people in the custody of immigration officials.

“History is clear: the time to say NO is now, we refuse to be complicit. It is unconscionable that Google, or any other tech company, would support agencies engaged in caging and torturing vulnerable people,” Google employees said. They also complained that the agencies in question are harming asylum seekers, separating children from parents, and illegally detaining refugees and U.S. citizens.

Later, The Intercept revealed that Google is reportedly supplying its artificial intelligence technology to help build a “virtual border wall” for the Trump administration—Google defended the CBP contract after the public raised concerns.

The same year witnessed several Google employees on the frontline leaking details about Project Dragonfly, which aims to provide a highly censored, custom search engine for the Chinese government.

Money over principles?

Google is one of the biggest cloud computing companies in the world, and has signed controversial contracts with major powers like the U.S., Israel, and China.

Google may have backed out of Project Maven and similar contracts, but the latest news reveals it is still ready to sleep on its AI principles. Despite the public outrages, Google does not seem affected and continues to collect lucrative defense contracts.

As tech companies like Google invade nearly every aspect of our lives, it becomes a struggle for Google employees to choose between a values-based culture and lucrative business deals.

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ivo Mobile, a Chinese technology company, is accused by India’s Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) of evading $280 million in taxes. This has led to a dispute between two of Asia’s biggest economic markets.

Notwithstanding the COVID19 outbreak, China-India trade increased to $67.1 billion in the first half of 2022, putting it on track to surpass $100 billion for the second year in a row. However, in spite of the potential and wide-ranging prospects of economic and trade collaboration between the two countries, diplomatic disputes and trade rivalry continue.

The Chinese mobile phone industry and technology companies are in the spotlight in India, and relations between the Indian government and Chinese tech giants Xiaomi, Huawei, Vivo, and Oppo are strained. While Chinese smartphone producers control 60–70% of the Indian smartphone market, Chinese companies conducting business in India still face challenges.

Chinese smartphones are widely used in India especially due to their low price and high quality, despite political conflicts.

Vivo Mobile

Chinese smartphone manufacturers have recently come under scrutiny from India’s Enforcement Directorate (ED), the Indian financial investigating authorities, and courts. In an attempt to boost its lackluster domestic industry, India aims to prevent Chinese smartphone manufacturers from selling products for less than 12,000 rupees ($150), which will hurt companies like Xiaomi, Bloomberg reports.

The DRI accuses Vivo Mobile of evading taxes totaling 22.1 billion rupees ($280 million). In the statement, the DRI said that there was “incriminating evidence indicating willful misdeclaration in the description of certain imported items.” In addition, earlier in July, India’s Enforcement Directorate declared that it had searched 48 Vivo locations across India, seizing $60 million from the company’s bank accounts.

On July 13, Oppo, another Chinese smartphone producer which sells the favored Realme model and OnePlus brand, was accused by the DRI of evading customs duties totaling 43.9 billion rupees ($551 million).

The DRI claims Oppo misdeclared imported goods and failed to factor in royalties and license fees when calculating their value to avoid paying higher customs duties. The revenue agency is demanding that Oppo repay the entire amount.

According to Oppo’s spokesperson response, “We are going to reply to the notice, presenting our side, and will be working further with the related government departments.”

The 2020 border dispute

Since the June 2020 border dispute, bilateral relations between India and China have not improved much despite frequent meetings. The year 2020 was a watershed moment as 20 Indian soldiers and five Chinese soldiers died in violent clashes, according to their respective governments. Since then, India has imposed sanctions on numerous Chinese companies.

After political tensions increased, several Chinese businesses faced difficulties conducting business in India. Since then, India has banned more than 200 Chinese apps like ByteDance’s TikTok and Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s WeChat. Moreover, India tightened regulations on Chinese investment, citing security concerns.

Turbulent bilateral relations

The sanctions and investigations by the Indian government on Chinese technology companies are criticized by China. Hu Weijia, a reporter for China’s state-run English-language daily Global Times, published an article under the title “Crackdown on Chinese Firms Undercuts India’s Attractiveness.”

The article argues that India has been trying to increase domestic production in order to make itself a global production center, but for some reasons, it has not been able to do so.

The trade war between China and the United States intensified during the period of former U.S. President Donald Trump, who blamed China for spreading the COVID19 virus. The decision of American companies to withdraw from China after the escalating tension prompted India to attract the U.S. investments in a race to become a possible world production center.

The article states that India has a “protectionist policy” and “approval system” that prevents it from being a global production center.

It is stated that if smartphone production in India becomes increasingly difficult, withdrawing from India is also an option.

Weapons produced via three-dimensional (3D) printing technology first appeared in the United States in 2013. Since then, they remained a serious threat which was constantly ignored. These are real weapons, easy to use, and cheap to produce, and pose an uncharted threat. This paper serves to warn individuals and states of the serious threat posed by 3D-printed weapons if no action is taken against these dangerous 3D “toys.”

3D printing technology

To understand how 3D-printed weapons work, we need to understand 3D printing technology, which has been developing since the 1980s. 3D printing is the process of converting models designed by a computer device into solid forms. Unlike the traditional model of production, 3D printing technology creates very little waste material and provides high efficiency, and for this reason it is in high demand in recent years.

The raw material of production in 3D printing technology includes colored and hard thermoplastic or metal rolls known as “filaments” that are used instead of the cartridges in 2D printers that we use in our daily life. These filaments are usually obtained by the industrial processing of materials such as resins, polymers, or composites. Devices that perform 3D printing and reveal products are known as 3D printers.

The most important feature that distinguishes these devices from the printers used in daily life is that they can move along the vertical axis as well as the horizontal and right-left axes. With 3D printers technically based on a three-axis Computer Numerical Control (CNC) mechanism, many different products can be printed, from clocks to pens, sculptures to weapon parts, and shoes to car parts.

Accordingly, it appears that two basic parts are required for a 3D-printed product: a 3D printer and filaments. While printers turn designs in the virtual environment into industrial products, filaments act as a kind of raw material for these products. In the pre-production process, a model of the part to be produced must be created with the help of computer-aided design (CAD) software or a scanner. Therefore, anyone who knows how to use CAD software or a laser or optical scanner, and has a 3D printer and filaments, can easily design and print a weapon. In fact, there is no need to know how to use CAD or a scanner because there are 3D-printed weapon models available for free on the internet.

Anyone who knows how to use CAD software or a laser or optical scanner, and has a 3D printer and filaments, can easily design and print a weapon.

A brief history of 3D-printed weapons and their use

Cody Wilson, owner of the U.S.-based open-source hardware (OSH) organization Defense Distributed, is known as the first person to make and use weapons with 3D printers. Adhering to the anarchist idea that everyone should produce their own guns, Wilson produced the first 3D-printed plastic gun named “Liberator.” In this manner, he initiated a new era in the arms industry with his first shot in 2013. In parallel, Wilson shared the 3D printable files for the construction of the gun, which were downloaded more than 100,000 times in two days. Following this, the U.S. government decided to remove the files from the site, fearing that these weapons could spread uncontrollably. However, the company filed a lawsuit for the annulment of the decision, and in a 2018 decision, the ban was found to be unconstitutional.

Thus, the model that allows the production of 3D-printed guns became once again an open source. Following this outcome, the number of 3D-printed weapons started to increase by the day in the United States. In addition, another U.S.-based company named Solid Concepts, inspired by Wilson’s “Liberator,” produced the first metal 3D-printed gun in 2013. These products, both of which have the appearance of toy guns, are known as the first products of 3D printing technology in the arms industry.

Another dimension of the threat is related to the diversification of the weapons produced. The first weapons produced based on 3D printing technology consisted of pistols with rather small dimensions. However, today, the product portfolio has expanded considerably. So much so that even 3D-printed models of the AK-47 infantry rifle, the AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, or the CheyTac Intervention sniper rifle can be made.

In addition, as stated above, individuals and micro-groups with marginal views in the U.S. and Europe have carried out attacks against civilians and compromised public security with 3D-printed guns. These weapons did not attract attention during the attacks, as they look like toys. The attackers prepared the weapons based on written and visual material available on the internet. If marginal or radical individuals or groups turn to these “hot toys” en masse, public security may face an irreversible threat.

What can be done against the growing 3D-printed weapons threat?

Strict regulation is urgently needed in order to prevent the threat from growing bigger. First of all, 3D printer circulation in the market must be taken under control and the persons or companies that own these printers must be licensed.

The most comprehensive legal regulation regarding 3D-printed weapons to date is in the UK. Early in 2013, when 3D-printed weapons were just emerging, the British government strictly regulated and criminalized the manufacture, purchase, and sale of these weapons in the UK and linked it to governmental permission. In Australia, the government restricted the production of weapons via 3D printers to governmental permission with a 2015 decision. However, there is currently no ban in the U.S., where 3D-printed weapons are most common.

In addition, access to models of 3D-printed weapons on the internet must be restricted as those who download these models can produce and reproduce weapons. Although it is difficult to implement such restrictions in a world of rapidly developing technology, there is no other way to control 3D-printed weapons. Heavy penalties should be applied to those who produce and purchase 3D-printed weapons without permission.

At the moment, countries that produce weapons with 3D printing technology are not investing in this technology with any sense of urgency. However, a number of countries, especially the U.S., are investing more in 3D-printed weapons every year. Certain countries may enter a race for low-cost, 3D-printed weapons in the future. The magnitude of such a risk must push governments to introduce plans to restrict the global spread of 3D-printed weapons. The United Nations could and should lead this cause.