With all the talk of AI of recent, I picked up "Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence" (2023) by Paul Scharre to see where the new changes might fit into courses I have covered of recent (political economy, ethics, evaluation). A complaint to start: many figures in my copy of this book were blank, grey useless boxes. Clearly a printing error on the part of the publisher, but frustrating nonetheless. The book has eight parts. Part 1 is a good summary of the key issues (data, computational power, talent, institutions), which is probably the most useful high-level part of this book. Part 2 begins to cover ethics, introduces a number of stories, and the role of corporate engagement. Parts 3 and 5 are largely anti-China (that is not to defend China; that is only to point out that the negative examples this ex-US army ranger chooses are Chinese ones; when discussing consent, privacy, and monitoring we learn all about Chinese evils, but no mention of the NSA or Snowden, or others – this consistent inclusion/exclusion bias makes the book largely pro-American and anti-Chinese). Part 4 covers the unhealthy information environment we all live within, but is largely outdated (expectedly, books are slow to publish). Part 6 returns to US military projects (a common theme of the book, not surprisingly given the author's background). Part 7 outlines some of the problems with AI: bias, risks, limitations, vulnerabilities. Part 8 concludes with perspectives on the future of war. A few notes:

"AI has many constructive applications. AI will save lives and increase efficiency and productivity. It is also being used as a weapon of repression and to gain military advantage. This book is about the darker side of AI." (p. 4)

"In fact, machine learning systems are often so narrowly constrained by the datasets on which they've been trained that their performance can often drop if they are used for tasks that are not well-represented in the training data. For example, a facial recognition system may perform poorly on people of races or ethnicities that are not adequately represented in its training data. A machine learning algorithm used for predictive maintenance on one aircraft won't work on another aircraft—it would need to be retrained on data for the new aircraft. It may not even be effective at predicting maintenance needs on the same aircraft in a new environment, since maintenance needs may differ based on environmental conditions, such as in a desert where sand can clog parts or in a maritime environment where there is saltwater corrosion." (p. 21)

"Facial recognition systems are being merged with other tools for big data analysis in the Ministry of Public Security's "Police Cloud" system. Police cloud computing data centers, which are being implemented in numerous cities and provinces across China, include not only criminal records, facial recognition, and other biometric data, but also addresses, religious affiliations, medical records, birth control records, travel bookings, online purchases, package deliveries, and social media comments. These databases are not merely repositories of information but are intended to automatically fuse and analyze data for police. They could be used to monitor and track individuals of interest and also connect them to associates." (p. 89) 

Ali Shariati was an Iranian scholar and philosopher (1933-1977), argued to be one of the foremost intellectuals influencing the Iranian Revolution. Ali Shariati and the Future of Social Theory: Religion, Revolution, and the Role of the Intellectual (2017), edited by Byrd and Miri, revisits the ideas of Ali Shariati for contemporary and future of social sciences. The book is an edited collection (15 chapters), with contributions from a wide range of geographies and perspectives. Some notes:

"Shariati instead championed an enlightened and thus reinvigorated Islam that could govern itself, wherein Islam was the guide of the people and not their manager. This of course "radicalized" Islam, but not in the same way that is discussed when speaking of al-Qaʾeda, isis (daesh) and other terrorist groups – the false prophets of Islamism. Shariati radicalized Islam by a future oriented-return to its most radical roots, best exemplified by the sunnah (way) of Muhammad and his family, reacquainting the Muslim ummah with its original zeitgeist: a theologically oriented demand and revolt for social justice. In this way, Islam represented the universal longing for human emancipation, human flourishing and human solidarity, and rejected the particularity of the interests of the ruling elites" (p. 3)

"For Shariati, the exploitative sociology of Europe had realized that in order to be able to rob the East, to ride on her back, and to deceive her, it was imperative to strip her from her personality. Once this was accomplished, the East would proudly follow the West and, with unspeakable lunacy and thirst, would consume western goods. The exploiter, in this case the West, wanted to see his machines work all of the time. Furthermore, it wanted to see all originality, religion, tastes, and various talents destroyed, so that all races could be changed to become consumers of his products. In order to achieve this purpose, the exploiter searched for ways to deprive a nation of its personality, which was defined as the unique aspects of a culture that differentiates it from another. Therefore, a generation, like a tree, had to be severed from its roots so that it could be used and manipulated any way the exploiter wished." (p. 31-32)

"Shariati's epistemology posits that all knowledge is inherently value-laden relative to the universal ethics of Good and Evil which join existence in preceding essence. All knowledge must therefore be situated within the historical struggle between the religions of legitimation and revolution. Shariati thus advances an axiological epistemology that collapses Cartesian dualism without affirming a subjectivist, "anything-goes" ethical relativism. Methodologically, and consistent with the axiological anti-dualism of his epistemology, Shariati prescribes a methodology of critical hermeneutics. Because only God has universal knowledge of cause and effect, any attempts at unearthing an absolute semiotics is futile and impossible. Instead, Shariati argues that the only appropriate model for advancing human knowledge is the continuous interpretation of facts relative to their social construction and religious politics. Broken down into its constituent parts, Shariati's hermeneutical method involves 'objection, criticism, and the inner choice or selection of the individual.'" (p. 55)

"Shariati's ideas on religion and Islamic culture become clear in his correspondence with Franz Fanon. In his letter, Shariati expresses his disapproval and disagreement with Fanon over the essentiality of leaving religion in order for a nation to progress and conquer imperialism. He, instead, believes that a society must retain and regain its cultural and religious heritage as they can achieve the same ends. To him, religion, or more specifically the Islamic tradition, is the most powerful element for uniting the peoples and guiding them towards progressive objectives. Shariati cogently argues for the essentiality of a rediscovery of the national psyche before fighting the West. It is only with a domestic and an inherent ideology rooted in its own political culture that Iran can gain its respect by resisting imperialism." (p. 76)

"What Syed Hussein Alatas said of the mental captivity of intellectuals more than four decades ago still holds true, as the captive mind is real and ­pervasive in our society today. Trained almost entirely in the western sciences, the captive mind enjoys reading the western authors, and is educated primarily by western teachers, either in the West or through their available works in local institutions of education. Many of our intellectuals and university/college teachers read the works of western authors and teach them, yet they are not aware of this academic dependency, and those who are conscious of it do not bother to make an effort to change it. Our teachers use textbooks that are developed in countries very different than ours. They appear to have been total victims of the captive mind. Thus, Alatas' concept of captive mind resonates perfectly with the notions of mimicry and repetition that have been considered as one of the most effective strategies of colonial power and knowledge." (p. 79)

"In terms of educational methods, Shariati puts forward this pair of contrasting words: cultivation vs. instruction. According to him, the Islamic view puts cultivation at the center of education, whereas the western view takes instruction as the main vehicle for education. This is in parallel to the ­above-mentioned centrality of values in the curriculum adopted by Islamic education, and the centrality of knowledge in western education. According to Islamic education, in order to provide pupils with values, instruction is not enough, but living with pupils and dealing with their daily issues and giving them a role model is required." (p. 218) 

Walking around a bookshop that largely carried children's materials, I came across an interesting (and out of place) book: "The Afghanistan File" written by Prince Turki AlFaisal Al Saud, the Director of the General Intelligence Directorate (1977-2001) in Saudi Arabia. It seems the book was dictated by Prince Turki, written by Michael Field, and published in 2021. The book is published by Arabian Publishing, so it might not have made its way around the typical networks. For those interested in Afghanistan, or Saudi, this is an interesting addition to the dialogue. A few notes:

"In spite of his reservations Brzezinski recommended 'more money as well as arms shipments to the rebels, and some technical advice'. 'It is essential that Afghanistani resistance continues,' he wrote. 'To make [this] possible we must both reassure Pakistan and encourage it to help the rebels … We should concert with Islamic countries both in a propaganda campaign and in a covert action campaign…' This memorandum led to another Presidential 'Finding' at the end of December, which permitted the CIA to send weapons secretly to the Mujahideen. The purpose was to make the Soviet intervention as costly as possible to get the USSR 'bogged down', as Brzezinski put it later, and to discourage other military interventions." (p. 9-10)

"The purchasing of weapons and ammunition was managed mainly by the CIA, and at the start it was agreed among us, the Pakistanis and the Americans that supplies would be of Warsaw Pact origin so that it would appear to the Russians that the Mujahideen had captured them or bought them from the Afghan army. Alternatively they could be of old western manufacture, the sort of material that the Mujahideen might have bought on the international arms market or in the frontier region. At all costs we wanted to avoid showing that our three countries were involved as suppliers." (p. 42)

"During the war the amounts of money going into the pipeline increased enormously. In 1980 Saudi Arabia and America together put in $300,000, though at this stage there were various other direct payments made, including the $2 million we sent in cash with Ahmad Badeeb in January that year. In 1981 the two countries put in $60 million, by 1984 the figure had reached $400 million and by the end of the Soviet occupation it was running at around $1 billion. The actual movement of the Saudi contribution was into a Swiss account of the CIA." (p. 48)

"In his book The Hidden War: A Russian Journalists Account of the Soviet War in Afghanistan, published in 1990 during the time of glasnost, Artyom Borovik wrote that the Soviet Union at the beginning was 'obsessed with our own messianic mission and blinded by arrogance… [W]e rarely stopped to think how Afghanistan would influence us… In Afghanistan we bombed not only the detachments of rebels and their caravans, but our own ideals as well… In Afghanistan the policies of the government became utterly incompatible with the inherent morality of our nation. things could not continue in the same vein.'" (p. 98) 

Ha-Joon Chang has written many excellent books, on this blog I have covered Kicking Away the Ladder and 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism. With the encouragement of Oxfam's Duncan Green, in 2007 Chang published "Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism". The book aims for a general audience, and in many ways puts the arguments in the above two books in a more accessible way, often conveyed via story. For the details, see his other books. Many of the examples are getting dated, but still a useful read. Some notes:

"This neo-liberal establishment would have us believe that, during its miracle years between the 1960s and the 1980s, Korea pursued a neo-liberal economic development strategy. The reality, however, was very different indeed. What Korea actually did during these decades was to nurture certain new industries, selected by the government in consultation with the private sector, through tariff protection, subsidies and other forms of government support (e.g., overseas marketing information services provided by the state export agency) until they 'grew up' enough to withstand international competition. The government owned all the banks, so it could direct the life blood of business—credit. Some big projects were undertaken directly by state-owned enterprises—the steel maker, POS CO, being the best example—although the country had a pragmatic, rather than ideological, attitude to the issue of state ownership. If private enterprises worked well, that was fine; if they did not invest in important areas, the government had no qualms about setting up state-owned enterprises (SOEs); and if some private enterprises were mismanaged, the government often took them over, restructured them, and usually (but not always) sold them off again." (p. 14)

"Unfortunately, another lesson of history is that rich countries have 'kicked away the ladder' by forcing free-market, free-trade policies on poor countries. Already established countries do not want more competitors emerging through the nationalistic policies they themselves successfully used in the past. Even the newest member of the club of rich countries, my native Korea, has not been an exception to this pattern. Despite once having been one of the most protectionist countries in the world, it now advocates steep cuts in industrial tariffs, if not total free trade, in the WTO." (p. 61)

"Markets have a strong tendency to reinforce the status quo. The free market dictates that countries stick to what they are already good at. Stated bluntly, this means that poor countries are supposed to continue with their current engagement in low-productivity activities. But their engagement in those activities is exactly what makes them poor. If they want to leave poverty behind, they have to defy the market and do the more difficult things that bring them higher incomes—there are no two ways about it." (p. 210)

"Knowing what policies are right for your particular circumstances is not enough. A country must be able to implement them. Over the past quarter of a century, the Bad Samaritans have made it increasingly difficult for developing countries to pursue the 'right' policies for their development. They have used the Unholy Trinity of the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO, the regional multilateral financial institutions, their aid budgets and bilateral and regional free-trade or investment agreements in order to block them from doing so. They argue that nationalist policies (like trade protection and discrimination against foreign investors) should be banned, or severely curtailed, not only because they are supposed to be bad for the practising countries themselves but also because they lead to 'unfair' competition. In arguing this, the Bad Samaritans constantly invoke the notion of the 'level playing field.' The Bad Samaritans demand that developing countries should not be allowed to use extra policy tools for protection, subsidies and regulations, as these constitute unfair competition." (p. 217-218).