The Rundown: SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son is reportedly planning to fund a $1T industrial complex in Arizona. Dubbed “Project Crystal Land,” it aims to replicate the scale of China’s Shenzhen, but with a laser focus on next-gen robotics and AI.
The details:
The complex is planned as a self-contained ecosystem with semiconductor fabs, robotics R&D labs, logistics hubs, and even residential zones for workers.The project is designed to emulate the success of Shenzhen, renowned for its dense network of manufacturers, suppliers, and innovators.Central to the project is to build production lines for industrial robots, drawing on the expertise of major chipmakers and tech giants — most notably TSMC. A $1T commitment would represent twice the investment of the $500B “Stargate” project, backed by SoftBank, OpenAI, and Oracle.
Why it matters: If realized, the project promises to boost high-end robotics manufacturing on U.S. soil but also foster a vibrant innovation environment where startups and established firms collaborate to push the boundaries of what robots can achieve — all while positioning Arizona as a new epicenter for global robotics.
As artificial intelligence becomes the corporate buzzword du jour, executives are finding more and more ways to shoehorn the trendy tech into their everyday business operations.
Though AI — really just a fun name for large language models (LLMs), or predictive chatbots — in its current state isn’t likely to bring a labor revolution anytime soon, CEOs find that the threat of AI automation works just as well.
As Axios highlighted this week, CEOs are increasingly using AI adoption as a cudgel to justify layoffs, or to manufacture consent for layoffs in the future. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, for example, recently said AI is likely to “reduce our total corporate workforce,” while JPMorgan executives told investors that AI will allow for a “10 percent headcount reduction.”
Others, like Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke, are threatening workers directly, saying that AI is now the “baseline expectation.” Per Axios, Shopify managers hiring human workers now have to explain to top brass why AI wouldn’t be a better choice for any given job.
This kind of doomsday messaging goes hand in hand with increased expectations for workers’ productivity. A recent surveyfound that 77 percent of workers reported that AI adds to their workload. Of that, a staggering proportion — 39 percent — involves fixing the buggy tech’s sloppy mistakes.
While AI is a pretty recent phenomenon, these kinds of scare tactics aren’t new.
“Disciplining labor” is a concept that occasionally gets thrown around discussions of supply side economics. It’s a term used to describe broad economic measures that keep workers in line, in order to keep corporate profits high — suppressing unions, keeping wage growth low, and dangling the threat of unemployment over their heads.
In this sense, AI in its current form is simply a new whip for CEOs to use on their employees. It’s having what Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor at the Yale School of Management, calls an “inculcation effect” on workers.
It’s a “warning with an anticipatory alert that preempts later trauma going viral,” he told Axios.
Plus, now that the job market has been devastated by AI spambots, finding a new gig is harder than ever. With AI, workers are forced onto their back foot as their corporate overlords demand more productivity for less pay. If the choice is to either work harder or clear out their desk, employees are then less likely to ask for quality of life improvements, or to organize for unions that could win them.
And that, of course, means corporate honchos get an even bigger piece of the pie.
The Iranian parliament just approved the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, but left the final decision to the security authorities pic.twitter.com/39BwaUV0lz
In his first Irish interview, Colonel Douglas Macgregor, a decorated U.S. Army combat veteran, military strategist, and former Pentagon advisor, speaks candidly and in depth about the growing geopolitical crisis in the Middle East, including Israel, Iran, and the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. From Israel’s influence in Washington to the realities of the conflict in Ukraine, Iran’s regional role, and NATO’s military capabilities, Macgregor provides a detailed analysis that challenges mainstream narratives. Topics covered: – Israel’s influence over U.S. foreign policy – The true state of the Ukraine-Russia war – NATO’s limitations and strategic failures – Iran’s role in global geopolitics – Internal security threats facing the United States and Ireland
🚨BREAKING : 🇺🇸💥🇮🇷The first move in Iran’s retaliation could be to block the Strait of Hormuz, a critical chokepoint where nearly a quarter of the world’s oil trade flows. This narrow waterway connects the Persian Gulf to the Indian Ocean, and any disruption here would send oil… pic.twitter.com/VAyQGpNM3l
There is too much accumulated pain in this world today…….it is time to learn and make the change.
George Santayana ‘Those who forget history or condemned to repeat it’
February 2002, sitting alone and trying to enhance memory skills (outcome of a horse riding fall), I transcribed a TV programme on the human impact of war. Nearly three years later (with virtually no memory of the intervening period), I find the details. The coincidence is that it is the day George Bush becomes President of the US for a second term). As a Pacifist I have decided to re-circulate this.
President Bush is democratically elected for the next four years so now we must appeal to people to link to a route that will seek to achieve peaceful resolution.
A comment and the profound impact of the visual on the television focuses my attention to another person’s stark reality. The young man says:-
‘The reality changes with the first air-raid’.
‘It needs to be witnessed, felt, the sense of smell must be evoked. The Macho men all of a sudden are ‘scared men’. The world becomes four-dimensional. They are face to face with the imminence of death.
He states the key factor as the sense of guilt……yes, its is the paradox. ‘YOU LIVE AND ANOTHER DIES’
The point is poignantly made that the war environment inflames the will to live but this gives way to a will to no longer live, once they have returned ‘Home’.
The reality is that mental wounds are just the same as physical wounds.
What people forget is the reality of the war front; the need for alcohol; to enhance entertainment and compensate for loss of family, friends…. Combatants can ‘play around’ with dead bodies and fire hand grenades. There are no sanctions as such. The word CONTEXTUALISE IS SO OFTEN FORGOTTEN.
The reaction of the Ministry of Defence in the UK to the problems that arose per consequence of the Falklands war, was to reduce the medical budget. This appears incredible when one considers just what happened in Vietnam when three times the number of men who died in action actually committed suicide. This does not take account of those affected by alcohol, drug addiction and other scars of war. In the UK, more combatants have now died from suicide than were killed in the Falklands war and the numbers are rising significantly.
It is at this point, we need to ask, what can be done to halt the atrocities of War in Iraq and put an end to the War on Terrorism. People are suffering and people will continue to suffer. This is a quote that may help us to take another view. It is at least worth thinking about………
The Talmud ‘We do not see the world as it is, we see the world as we are’
July 7th 2016
The Chilcot Report was released yesterday. Clearly the foregoing quotation is accurate because there was form of mania with those who had absolute power like Tony Blair Prime Minister UK and President George Bush that resulted in war games that continue to this day with an ever increasing amount of horror and distress to innocent people in particular in the Middle East and North Africa.
The decision: Is there a Crime of Aggression? Will Mr Blair face the International Criminal court?
17 hours ago – Sir John Chilcot delivers scathing report after seven years; Inquiry finds invasion was unnecessary, but not illegal; War ‘not the last resort’ and …
Image source: Softbank
