Aurelia Butler

The debate, the first between opposition hopefuls since 2011, was held as they await a ruling by the country’s top court which could suspend the Oct. 22 nominating contest.Independent candidate for 2024 Luis Ratti – who many in the opposition say has ties to the ruling socialist party – asked the Supreme Justice Tribunal on Monday to bar the primary on unspecified allegations of irregularities. Venezuela’s often divided opposition is seeking to dislodge President Nicolas Maduro, who has ruled the country since 2013. Though the last election in 2018 was widely condemned, especially by the United States, as fraudulent, the opposition has so far failed to unseat Maduro.Three of the most high-profile of the 14 opposition hopefuls, Maria Corina Machado, Henrique Capriles and Freddy Superlano, have already been barred from holding public office.The primary must give the opposition clear leadership and stronger unity, said the eight candidates who attended the debate, organized by non-governmental groups and hosted at Universidad Catolica Andres Bello. “We need a leadership that does not hesitate, that confronts, that is incapable of bending in the face of threats,” said Machado, a 55-year-old former lawmaker who is leading polling for the primary.”This is not a conventional election,” said Superlano, who warned any of the candidates could be banned. “We need leadership who will take the fight to the end.”However, there was disagreement about how to choose a replacement if the favored candidate was barred from running.Two-time presidential candidate Capriles was notably absent. He said on Monday the country needs the opposition to be unified, not airing its differences in public.The hopefuls said private investors must feel confident returning to Venezuela, whose economy contracted for eight consecutive years until 2022, when it showed incipient growth which is already waning.”We propose … reinserting the country into the global financial system to attract investment. Productive expansion means openings markets, privatizing, and respecting private property,” Machado said.Superlano and other hopefuls, including former lawmakers Delsa Solorzano and Carlos Prosperi, said laws were needed to ensure respect for private property, increase employment, and revise rules which allow the state a majority participation in oil companies.”We need to move from extractive development to productive development, to a free-market economy that obliges the inclusion of those who have been left behind,” said former legislator Tamara Adrian. More

AUSTIN (Reuters) – Rapid advancements in artificial intelligence have the potential to exacerbate societal problems and even pose an existential threat to human life, increasing the need for global regulation, AI experts told the Reuters MOMENTUM conference this week. The explosion of generative AI – which can create text, photos and videos in response to open-ended prompts – in recent months has spurred both excitement about its potential as well as fears it could make some jobs obsolete, upend economies and even possibly overpower humans.”We are flying down the highway in this car of AI,” said Ian Swanson, CEO and co-founder of Protect AI, which helps businesses secure their AI and machine learning systems, during a Reuters MOMENTUM panel on Tuesday. “So what do we need to do? We need to have safety checks. We need to do the proper basic maintenance and we need regulation.”Regulators need look no further than at social media platforms to understand how unchecked growth of a new industry can lead to negative consequences like creating an information echo chamber, said Seth Dobrin, president of the Responsible AI Institute. “If we expand the digital divide … that’s going to lead to disruption of society,” Dobrin said. “Regulators need to think about that.”Regulation is already being prepared in several countries to tackle issues around AI.The European Union’s proposed AI Act, for example, would classify AI applications into different risk levels, banning uses considered “unacceptable” and subjecting “high-risk” applications to rigorous assessments.U.S. lawmakers last month introduced two separate AI-focused bills, one that would require the U.S. government to be transparent when using AI to interact with people and another that would establish an office to determine if the United States remains competitive in the latest technologies.One emerging threat that lawmakers and tech leaders must guard against is the possibility of AI making nuclear weapons even more powerful, Anthony Aguirre, founder and executive director of the Future of Life Institute, said in an interview at the conference.Developing ever-more powerful AI will also risk eliminating jobs to a point where it may be impossible for humans to simply learn new skills and enter other industries. “We’re going to end up in a world where our skills are irrelevant,” he said. The Future of Life Institute, a nonprofit aimed at reducing catastrophic risks from advanced artificial intelligence, made headlines in March when it released an open letter calling for a six-month pause on the training of AI systems more powerful than OpenAI’s GPT-4. It warned that AI labs have been “locked in an out-of-control race” to develop “powerful digital minds that no one – not even their creators – can understand, predict, or reliably control.””It seems like the most obvious thing in the world not to put AI into nuclear command and control,” he said. “That doesn’t mean we won’t do that, because we do a lot of unwise things.” More

Good morning. Today’s top story is on US inflation, which eased last month to its slowest rate in more than two years. US inflation fell sharply to 3 per cent in June, sending the dollar lower and highlighting the Federal Reserve’s relative success at bearing down on price pressures.The improved picture in Wednesday’s data stands in sharp contrast to other advanced economies, such as the UK where the Bank of England is struggling to control inflation of 8.7 per cent. China’s economy, meanwhile, teetered on the brink of deflation in June, with flat annual CPI, adding to calls for more stimulus. The major US stock indices hit 15-month highs; the two-year Treasury yield, which moves with interest rate expectations, fell to a two-week low of 4.73 per cent; and the US dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six currencies, hit its weakest point in 15 months.The annual increase in the consumer price index slowed from 4 per cent in May to 3 per cent in June, the slowest rate of inflation since March 2021, compared with expectations of 3.1 per cent.“After a punishing stretch of high inflation that eroded consumers’ purchasing power, the fever is breaking,” said Bill Adams, chief economist at Comerica Bank.Here’s what I’m keeping tabs on today:Economic data: Monthly oil market reports will be released by the International Energy Agency and Opec. France has consumer price index and HICP inflation rate figures for last month, while final June producer price index data is due from the US. South Korea interest rate decision: Economists expect the Bank of Korea to hold rates at 3.5 per cent for the fourth straight meeting. (Bloomberg) Meetings: The EU-Japan summit begins in Brussels, attended by European Council president Charles Michel, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida.Thailand’s high-stakes vote for PM: Parliament will vote for new prime minister. Pita Limjaroenrat, whose progressive Move Forward party won big in May’s general election, faces various obstacles to become prime minister and supplant the military-backed government. (The Guardian)Five more top stories1. Elon Musk has launched xAI, an artificial intelligence company aiming to challenge the dominance of ChatGPT owner OpenAI. The company will be led by Musk, who has also secured thousands of GPU processors from Nvidia, which are required to build large language models that consume vast amounts of content. Here are more details on Musk’s plans for AI. Nvidia news: The world’s most valuable semiconductor company is in talks to be an anchor investor in SoftBank-owned chip designer Arm’s New York IPO. 2. At Nato’s summit this week, allies were careful to stress their staunch support for Ukraine in the face of Russia’s invasion. But after Volodymyr Zelenskyy blasted Nato for its “absurd” lack of a clear timeline for Ukraine’s entry, tensions began spilling into the open. Here’s more on the frustrations between Ukraine and its allies. Related: US President Joe Biden said he is considering sending long-range missiles to Ukraine, a potentially significant shift as Washington alters its risk calculus in Ukraine as the war slogs on.3. EY China has refused to pay fees owed to its global headquarters for more than a year in a dispute over IT services. The Chinese arm says the services cannot be fully used after Beijing tightened data security rules, according to people familiar with the matter. Read more on the tussle between EY’s global bosses and its semi-independent member firms in China.4. Japanese regional banks have been accused by the country’s financial regulators of “gender-washing” in disclosures to investors due to legal ambiguity over leadership roles occupied by women. Here’s what the Financial Services Agency’s survey revealed about female representation in management at regional banks.Other banks news: JPMorgan is hiring dozens of bankers around the world who cater to start-ups and venture capital-backed companies as it tries to take advantage of the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. 5. North Korea has fired an intercontinental ballistic missile into waters between the Korean peninsula and Japan, days after threatening to shoot down US reconnaissance planes it accused of violating its airspace. Japan’s defence ministry said the missile flew for about 74 minutes, the longest flight time for any North Korean long-range missile. The Big Read

© FT montage/Lindsay DeDario

Four decades after Ronald Reagan rejected large-scale US government intervention in the economy, Joe Biden is embracing it wholeheartedly with a raft of subsidies for domestic producers in strategic sectors, in the hope of creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs. Will the president’s policies transform the American economy in a way that is durable and have a tangible impact that resonates with voters?We’re also reading . . . Corporate Japan’s hunt for US deals: Unlike the 1980s, the current search is about diversifying revenue streams and not accumulating trophy assets.Turkey looks west: Backing Sweden’s Nato bid was a strategic move by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to ease tensions and unblock trade.Battle in cyber space: After serving as a marine, Nathaniel Fick became the White House’s first-ever cyber space ambassador, tasked with championing America’s digital interests against countries such as China. Chart of the dayThe yen strengthened past ¥140 against the dollar on Wednesday on bets from currency and bond traders that the Bank of Japan could soon begin its pivot away from its ultra-loose monetary policy. The 3.5 per cent rise to ¥139.5 against the dollar in July set the Japanese currency on a tentative course for its best month since the country’s finance authorities intervened late last year to prop up the currency.Take a break from the newsWant some fresh fashion inspiration for the summer? FT’s deputy fashion editor Carola Long suggests looking to Ken, the real style star of the upcoming Barbie movie.

Ryan Gosling, as Ken, in a co-ordinated cabana set

Additional contributions by Tee Zhuo and Gordon Smith More