Beating China at its own game
Suggested by Marc Sidwell, deputy editor of a new magazine, launching in the new year
Can unleashing global entrepreneurship reset the strategic balance with China? In a provocative essay, the ever-interesting Francis Pedraza makes the case.
Pedraza is the entrepreneur behind Invisible, an online ops platform that coordinates remote knowledge workers. He points out that China leveraged its manpower advantage in low-cost labour to end up dominating high-tech manufacturing through the Shenzhen cluster, gaining a global strategic advantage. Pedraza argues that the West can now play a similar game of its own by turning to the world outside China to coordinate low cost knowledge work online.
There are 5 billion people outside China earning less than $10 a day. Tapping that workforce, he argues, could open an advantage that China, with its total population of 1 billion, cannot replicate.
Pedraza identifies an opportunity that trades on the ever-expanding dominance of English as a lingua franca, the ever-deeper penetration of the internet around the world and the growing sophistication of online platforms that lower the transaction costs of coordinating and rewarding entrepreneurial individuals everywhere.
With increasing concerns about China’s aggressive tactics at home and abroad, perhaps it’s time for entrepreneurs to think big in response.
AI regulation in the EU: The risks of a human-rights based approach
Suggested by Sam Dumitriu, research director of The Entrepreneurs Network
The new European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen has promised to release proposals for a new AI law within her first 100 days in office. She’s advancing a human rights-based approach to this regulatory effort – focusing on impacts on individuals, and framing potential harms by reference to human rights concepts such as individual dignity and autonomy. What does this mean in practical terms? Ben Hooper and Ying Wu of regulatory consultancy Fingleton Associates argue “the EU’s hope that trust will drive AI growth looks like a risky bet.”
There’s a danger that the EU will fall behind in AI, as other more permissive regimes attract talent. Not only would this be a bad result for businesses and consumers in Europe, but it’d also mean that the EU would find it increasingly hard for the EU to enforce its more restrictive regime.
As the authors write: “AI looks set to be the most important technology of the next few decades. Given these stakes, losing the global AI race would have immense implications for the EU’s future competitiveness.”
Music as cultural cloud storage
Suggested by Philip Salter, founder of The Entrepreneurs Network
"I would say that music is the only form of entertainment in which the technology has gotten worse during my lifetime." Ted Gioia's provocative idea comes from his excellent Conversation with Tyler.
Gioia isn't a luddite. For example, the music historian isn't concerned that streaming platforms have changed how people sing and perform (ie. needing to hold listeners' attention for a few seconds to get a royalty). But he is really concerned about the technology lessening the whole listening experience due to lower sound quality.
It wasn't always thus. Innovation in sound quality used to be the norm, with RCA the Apple of its day, inventing new sound technologies like microphones and the 45 RPM single. Columbia invented the long-playing album and Sony invented the Walkman.
Gioia thinks it was a mistake for record labels to hand over innovation to Silicon Valley. Personally, I think having the world's music in my pocket is probably a price worth paying for lower quality listening, but Gioia makes a strong case that it's not (he also has a brilliantly eclectic music taste).
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