Problem statement: Can democracy survive the polycrisis?

  GEORGE SOROS

The Columbia University economic historian Adam Tooze has, indeed, popularised a word. He calls it a “polycrisis.” The polycrisis has many sources. The main source of the polycrisis afflicting the world today is artificial intelligence. Climate change comes second, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine qualifies as the third.

Artificial intelligence

AI shocked the world when Microsoft made ChatGPT freely available to the public through an associated company called OpenAI. That was in November 2022. ChatGPT posed an existential threat to Google’s business model. Google went into overdrive to release a competing product as soon as possible. Shortly thereafter, Geoffrey Hinton, who is generally considered the godfather of AI, resigned from Google so that he could speak openly about the risks posed by the new technology. Reversing his previous position, he took a very dim view of AI. He said that it could destroy our civilization. Hinton pioneered the development of neural networks that can understand and generate language and learn skills by analysing data. As the data grew, so did the capacity of AI’s so-called large language models.

This made a big impression on Hinton. “Maybe what is going on in these systems is actually a lot better than what is going on in the brain,” he said. As they become more powerful they also become more dangerous, he claimed. In particular, he warned against fully autonomous weapon systems – killer robots, he called them. “We’ve entered completely unknown territory. We’re capable of building machines that are stronger than ourselves, but we’re still in control. But what if we develop machines that are smarter than us? … It will take AI between five and 20 years to surpass human intelligence.” And “it will soon realize that it achieves its goals better if it becomes more powerful.”

I wholeheartedly agree with the experts who argue that it needs to be regulated. But the regulations have to be globally enforceable because the incentive to cheat is too great; those who evade the regulations gain an unfair advantage. Global regulations are unattainable because the world is dominated by a conflict between two systems of governance which are diametrically opposed to each other. They have different views on what needs to be regulated and why. I refer to the two systems of governance as open and closed societies. I define the difference between the two as follows: in an open society, the role of the state is to defend the freedom of the individual; in a closed society, the role of the individual is to serve the interests of the rulers.

But AI is moving much faster than governmental authorities. The Biden administration has taken some executive action, but Congress will have difficulties in enacting anything like an “AI Bill of Rights.” There will be general elections in the United States in 2024 – and, most likely, in the UK as well – and AI will undoubtedly play an important role, one which is unlikely to be anything but dangerous.

Climate change

The global climate system has been disrupted by increased human intervention, particularly the large-scale use of greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide, and methane. The 2015 Paris agreement set a target of 1.5° Celsius above pre-industrial times. That is now bound to be transgressed; in spite of all the efforts to fight climate change, the rate of warming is actually accelerating. Two highly respected climate scientists, David King, a former chief scientific adviser to the UK government, and Johan Rockstrom of the Potsdam Institute, have warned that this could trigger tipping points and lead to the collapse of life on earth. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said that current climate policies will leave the Earth between 2.5°C and 2.7°C hotter by 2100. That would be a disaster, the scientists said. It would exceed the warmest temperature on earth over the past four million years. It would lead to the complete melting of the Greenland, Himalayan, and West Antarctic ice sheets and raise sea levels by ten meters.

“There would be a collapse of all the big biomes on planet Earth – the rainforest, many of the temperate forests – abrupt thawing of permafrost, we will have complete collapse of marine biology, we will have a shift of large parts of the habitability on Earth,” Rockstrom said. “Over one-third of the planet around the equatorial regions will be uninhabitable because you will pass the threshold of health, which is around 30°C.” Unfortunately, when fighting climate change interferes with people’s livelihood, they want to protect their livelihood. Farmers in Germany and the Netherlands are up in arms against regulating nitrogen emissions because these regulations prevent them from keeping cows. They have mobilized, winning elections and shaking the European Union. I should also mention the desire of oil companies to continue making a profit. We are way behind schedule in fighting climate change. We ought to do everything that climate scientists deem necessary – reduce emissions deeply and rapidly, remove excess greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, and refreeze the Arctic.

Russia’s war on Ukraine

The Russian invasion of Ukraine disrupted food supplies, causing major geopolitical realignments. The Ukrainian army put up heroic resistance and, with strong support from the US and Europe, turned things around. The Russian army proved to be a paper tiger, badly led and thoroughly corrupt. Ukraine is now ready to launch a counter-attack as soon as all of the equipment it has been promised by the West is delivered. Biden has even agreed that Ukraine should be given F-16 fighter planes.

The counter-attack will be successful. The target will be the Crimean Peninsula, the home base of the Russian Navy. By destroying the already damaged land bridge with Russia, Ukraine could turn a strategic asset into a strategic liability, because Crimea has no water. With the land bridge destroyed, Crimea will depend on Ukraine for water. Many parts of the Russian Federation are already chafing under President Putin’s despotic regime, and this development may cause them to reject it altogether.

The end of the war in Ukraine will come as a positive shock for the world. This may provide an opportunity for Biden to lower the tension between the US and China, which is itself in the midst of an economic decline that may make President Xi Jinping more receptive to an accommodation with the US. Biden is not seeking regime change in China; all he wants is to reestablish the status quo in Taiwan. A Russian defeat in Ukraine, and a lessening of Sino-American tensions, may create room for world leaders to focus on fighting climate change, which is threatening to destroy our civilization.

George Soros is Chairman of Soros Fund Management and the Open Society Foundations