The Korea Herald

[Lee Jae-min] AI changes everything, but how far can it go?

As Artificial Intelligence is rippling through every corner of our lives, ethical challenges and philosophical issues are also coming our way. The most important question is: what is the outer limit of the AI technology? Recent incidents involving AI in the military sector offer some silhouette of a possible answer.Now, AI is making an inroad into the defense industry. Autonomous weapons are becoming a reality. Taken to its technical extreme, it will not be too long before we see fully autonomou

April 17, 2018

[Lee Jae-min] AI changes everything, but how far can it go?

[Tyler Cowen] Syria war’s game theory is too complex to predict

Some strategic games are too complex to be readily modeled, and when we see such games in the real world that’s exactly when we should be the most worried. That’s my immediate reaction to the situation in Syria and environs.　Consider the distinct yet interrelated clashes going on. Not only did the US strike early Saturday at Syria’s chemical weapons facilities after the regime used such weapons against its citizens in Douma, but tensions between Israel and Iran have been escalating. It seems tha

April 16, 2018

[Tyler Cowen] Syria war’s game theory is too complex to predict

[Hal Brands] Four big risks from Bolton’s National Security Council purge

Give John Bolton credit for one thing: He knows how to make an entrance. During his first week on the job, the new national security adviser has initiated a purge of the National Security Council staff, pushing several top aides to resign, with more departures likely on the way. This internal shakeup is fully within Bolton’s prerogatives, and it is surely intended to get a notoriously discordant administration singing from the same sheet of music. In reality, however, it may just exacerbate the

April 16, 2018

[Hal Brands] Four big risks from Bolton’s National Security Council purge

[Chloe Morin] Strikes don’t have to derail Macron’s plans

When the French government unveiled its plan to make the national railway company more competitive and curtail benefits for some workers, commentators in France feared crippling protests comparable to those in 1995, when Alain Juppe’s government had to backtrack on rail sector reforms. Early signs were that President Emmanuel Macron would escape a similar fate. Polls showed support for his approach and the rail unions were divided in their response.　Public support then started to fade, and the o

April 16, 2018

[Tricia Bishop] I downloaded my Facebook data. I’m amused -- and disturbed

My presence on Facebook is fairly minimal. I keep my “friends” list small and I post infrequently. So I wasn’t too surprised when the social media company said I likely was not among the more than 87 million users whose data were swept up by Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm connected to Donald Trump and possibly Russia’s interference in our 2016 election.　But as Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg answered questions before Congress about online privacy and his company’s reac

April 16, 2018

[Ferdinando Giugliano] Global warming is central bank issue

Central bankers have been dubbed “masters of the universe” for the tools and powers they have acquired since the financial crisis. Some of them now want to play a more active role in the fight against climate change.　Monetary authorities are right to be mindful of the way in which climate risk affects their mandate to ensure price stability and guard financial stability. But that is different from seeking to promote the shift to a “greener” economy, which is the role of government.　Last week, ce

April 16, 2018

[Andrew Sheng] Fixing roof while sun is shining

Spring is the season of big meetings -- Davos, Boao and coming this weekend, the Spring Meetings of the IMF/World Bank in Washington. Here, the Davos men (and increasingly women) gather with central bankers, ministers of finance, bankers, policy wonks and academia to debate the state of the world. These are often casts of thousands, listening to the latest guru expounding on technology, politics, trade and finance.I was in Lake Como last week at a smaller conference hosted by the Italian think t

April 15, 2018

[Andrew Sheng] Fixing roof while sun is shining

[Michael Schuman] In trade spat, China has secret weapon

Markets are quivering as fears of a US-China trade war ebb and flow. Thus far, they’ve mostly been focused on tariffs that President Donald Trump wants to impose on a range of Chinese goods, and China’s threats to retaliate. But investors may be overlooking a bigger risk in this dispute.　It’s true that duties on US imports would hurt -- hands are already wringing in farm country -- but there’s a limit to how much pain they can really inflict. The persistent worry that China will dump its mammoth

April 15, 2018

[Michael Schuman] In trade spat, China has secret weapon

[Michael Dempsey] US and China have bigger problems than trade war

The tit-for-tat trade sanctions fight between the US and China may be getting the headlines and rocking financial markets, but some less-noticed recent flare-ups between the world’s pre-eminent powers may present more lasting, and perilous, complications for American policymakers.　The new National Defense and National Security Strategies produced by the Donald Trump administration made clear that Washington has a decidedly more pessimistic outlook on its future relationship with China. For years

April 15, 2018

[Jeffrey Sachs] Facebook and future of online privacy

Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook, recently noted that the public scrutiny of Facebook is “very much overdue,” declaring that “it’s shocking to me that they didn’t have to answer more of these questions earlier on.” Leaders in the information technology sector, especially in Europe, have been warning of the abuses by Facebook (and other portals) for years. Critics of Facebook have been making this point for years. Stefano Quintarelli, one of Europe’s top IT experts and a leading advocate fo

April 15, 2018

[Komal Sri-Kumar] Dollar an unexpected casualty of trade spat with China

In recent weeks, investors have witnessed a rare concurrence of market developments. Widespread concern about escalating trade conflicts has caused equities to plunge and US Treasury yields to decline. So far, the reaction has been a textbook case of investor behavior.　Yet, for all the turmoil, the dollar did not prove to be a safe harbor, and has remained weak against major world currencies. The new dynamic holds an important lesson for investors. As President Donald Trump ratchets up the rheto

April 15, 2018

[Bill Emmott] Xi’s strong hand against Trump

The world will soon witness a historic test of wills between China and the United States, two superpowers whose leaders see themselves as supreme. In the immediate sense, it will be a battle over trade. But also at stake is the strategic leadership of East Asia and, eventually, the international order. As things stand, China holds a stronger position than many people realize. The question is whether Chinese President Xi Jinping will feel confident or brazen enough to want to prove it.The test of

April 13, 2018

[Bill Emmott] Xi’s strong hand against Trump

[Christopher Balding] China is nationalizing its tech sector

As Bloomberg News reported this week, a key stumbling block in trade negotiations between China and the US has been Beijing’s extensive support for its technology firms. But if President Donald Trump’s administration thinks that will change any time soon, it hasn’t been paying attention: Far from reducing support for the tech sector, China is on the verge of nationalizing it.　By many measures, China’s tech companies seem unstoppable. Private equity and venture capital investment grew from $14 bi

April 13, 2018

[David Ignatius] The internet has a bigger problem than the Facebook fiasco

A word of advice for Congress as it ponders new schemes for internet regulation after the “perp walk” this week of Facebook tycoon Mark Zuckerberg: Don’t do it. Zuckerberg is a very tempting target. His serial apologies show how Facebook became so entangled in its corporate mission to “bring the world closer together” that it stopped putting the customer first. Facebook is paying for its mistakes in loss of customer trust -- its main asset -- and this market punishment has only just begun. It’s

April 12, 2018

[David Ignatius] The internet has a bigger problem than the Facebook fiasco

[Joe Nocera] US was winning war against China’s intellectual property theft

Twelve years ago, the Chinese put my brother-in-law, Frank Williams, out of business. Frank was one of the last costume jewelry designers in Providence, Rhode Island, a city where costume jewelry had once been a major industry. His small company, which he’d owned since 1978, had been profitable for its first 20 years. But in the late 1990s, the profits began to dry up.　Frank soon realized what was happening: Customers who had once bought large orders were buying small orders, and sending every n

April 12, 2018

[Joe Nocera] US was winning war against China’s intellectual property theft

[Noah Feldman] Bolton, pugilist from the right, takes a new position

Here’s a prediction that is sure to annoy everyone: Now that he’s national security adviser, John Bolton will become more moderate.　Some extremists moderate when they take public office because of bureaucratic pushback from the middle. That’s not what I expect for Bolton. He’s made a career of fighting the bureaucracy from the right.　I predict Bolton will moderate for the opposite reason: In this stage of President Donald Trump’s administration, there’s almost no one left to push back at Bolton

April 12, 2018

[Zaher Sahloul] Syria is normalizing the use of chemical weapons

The scenes have become strangely familiar by now.　The latest videos and pictures, streaming since Saturday from war-torn Syria, show the dead bodies of children and women, crowded in basements and littering the stairs of shelters. White foam covers their mouths and noses. They look asleep, but they are dead. There are no external wounds to explain why they are dead, a hallmark of exposure to chemical agents.　Another suspected chemical attack has occurred in Syria. Bushra is a medical student who

April 12, 2018

[Ferdinando Giugliano] Trump’s trade war pushes Europe toward China

The trade fight between the US and China is posing a dilemma to the European Union: Should the world’s largest trading bloc pick a side? And, if so, which one?　In theory, the US is the more natural ally for Europe: The two have cooperated closely since the end of World War II. And yet, Donald Trump’s slipshod approach to trade diplomacy risks pushing the EU into the arms of China. The EU’s main strategic interest in this fight is to ensure that the multilateral trading framework -- including the

April 12, 2018

[Kim Myong-sik] Choosing war on past instead of tolerance

While watching the live TV broadcast of the Seoul District Court’s sentencing on Park Geun-hye last Friday afternoon, people must have had several different images of the disgraced former president passing through their depressed minds.The defendant’s seat was empty, as Park has boycotted her hearings since October last year. Filling the space in the courtroom between the two state-appointed defense lawyers, in my screen of imagination, was Park taking the oath of office at the pinnacle of her c

April 11, 2018

[Kim Myong-sik] Choosing war on past instead of tolerance

[John Morgan Wilson] Put your phone down and drive

Like many pedestrians, I’ve learned to treat Los Angeles streets as an obstacle course of distracted drivers. Rule No. 1: Make sure a vehicle is stopped or braking before stepping off the curb. But even that didn’t save me at a corner near my West Hollywood home.The approaching car was on my right, slowing for the stop sign ahead. I started across, but midway I realized the driver’s attention had drifted and her car was regaining speed, veering my way. It was too late to dodge it, so I threw mys

April 11, 2018