AI in Government. Impact of AI on state departments, AI efficiency, AI cost-saving. AI policy decisions and global regulation of AI. Extract from Chapter 26 - new book: How AI will Change Your Life - by Patrick Dixon, keynote speaker on insurance and AI

Futurist Keynote Speaker: Posts, Slides, Videos - Government, Politics, Democracy, War - Future

Patrick Dixon is a global keynote speaker on cybersecurity and AI - author of 18 books - here in conversation with Futurist Gerd Leonhard 

WE NEED TO DISTINGUISH between government as in managing a country, which is about the civil service and ministerial departments, and government as in leading a nation, which is all about politics in a democracy, autocracy or dictatorship. (See previous chapter for wider use of AI in surveillance).

AI is already widely used by the civil service in most developed countries, supporting whoever is leading government. Key areas for AI will be developing policy options, modelling the impact of proposed policies, writing policy details and drafting legislation.

And at the end of this book is a proposed 10 Point Plan AI for governments, actions  and policy decisions to take now.

For the next five years, almost all such AI support activities will tend to be on separate systems, but by 2040 many government AI systems will be networked into one all-powerful, all-knowing AI colossus. This is despite inherent risks.

To some extent this is already happening across systems used by security services. So, for example, a security officer can access all of someone’s personal information relating to internet activity (searches, social media, purchases), location, phone logs, family and friends, employment, tax, immigration, banking, driving offences, criminal record, health records – plus other insights generated by AI-linked pattern recognition, predictive analytics. Such an entity will become a primary target for hostile countries to attack (and for ‘friendly’ countries to quietly probe).

Read on - buy my new book NOW.  "How AI Will Change Your Life."

Read more: AI in Government. Impact of AI on state departments, AI efficiency, AI cost-saving. AI policy decisions and global regulation of AI. Extract from Chapter 26 - new book: How AI will Change Your Life - by Patrick Dixon, keynote speaker on insurance and AI

AI warfare: AI in future conflicts. Battlefield AI, impact of AI on defence, military budgets, AI hybrid weapons, armed forces strategy. Extract from Ch25 - new book: How AI will Change Your Life - by Patrick Dixon, keynote speaker on Defence and AI

Futurist Keynote Speaker: Posts, Slides, Videos - Government, Politics, Democracy, War - Future

Patrick Dixon is a global keynote speaker on AI in defence / war, author of 18 books - in  conversation with Futurist Gerd Leonhard.

MILITARY SPENDING across the world will accelerate rapidly over the next decade and beyond, because of a growing threat of major wars in addition to existing conflicts. AI will be part of this defence industry boom. Military AI is racing ahead of all other AI innovation, except for AI in cybersecurity, national security, healthcare and workplace automation.

Military forces already spend $5bn a year on AI, for target acquisition, battle simulation, smarter intelligence and better weapon design. The Pentagon alone will invest $2bn in AI in 2025,

some of which will be in cybersecurity and cyberattack capabilities.The first two years since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine were a ghastly shock to military forces across the world, who had become over-reliant on smart weapons and mobile troops. Half a million fighters trapped in frozen trenches, cowering under artillery bombardment, trapped by landmines, thousands blown apart every month, in static conditions like those in the First World War.

Despite the horrors in Ukraine and the failure of high-tech weapons to achieve rapid gains, AI supremacy will become increasingly important. Indeed, the next stages of the Russian conflict will be dominated by drones and tech which increasingly relies on AI.

Wartime has always driven rapid innovation, and the fastest advances in AI will happen in the heat of fighting, amid the thunder of explosions and the destruction of cities. Advanced AI will detect threats in microseconds and be capable of triggering military conflicts in minutes, beyond the mental capacity of military leaders. AI will therefore end up with huge influence over military strategies and will control most firepower directly or indirectly.

Read on - buy my new book NOW.  "How AI Will Change Your Life."

Looking for a world-class keynote speaker on AI in Defence? Call +44 7768 511390

Read more: AI warfare: AI in future conflicts. Battlefield AI, impact of AI on defence, military budgets, AI hybrid weapons, armed forces strategy. Extract from Ch25 - new book: How AI will Change Your Life - by Patrick Dixon, keynote speaker on Defence and AI

Queen Elizabeth II: the power of example over a lifetime. Lessons for all great leaders. Why her impact on our future world will be so long lasting. Example is the only form of leadership that endures, because it is based on integrity and authenticity

Futurist Keynote Speaker: Posts, Slides, Videos - Government, Politics, Democracy, War - Future

The impact of the reign of Queen Elizabeth II, and of her leadership example, will be very long lasting, because she became one of the most trusted and respected figureheads on the world stage, as well as in her own nation. Her life was rooted in a deep sense of public duty, and a commitment to a life of public service, which was forced upon her by circumstance.

Hundreds of millions of words have already been written about her life, but the most powerful perhaps were spoken....

Read more: Queen Elizabeth II: the power of example over a lifetime. Lessons for all great leaders. Why her impact on our future world will be so long lasting. Example is the only form of leadership that endures, because it is based on integrity and authenticity

Russian military strategy in Ukraine under pressure. Longer term impact of military action / war on energy industry, wider economy and other geopolitical risks. Patrick Dixon is a Futurist Keynote Speaker

Futurist Keynote Speaker: Posts, Slides, Videos - Government, Politics, Democracy, War - Future

Geopolitical, energy industry and wider economy risks following Russia invasion of Ukraine. Comment during keynote at Seminarium event in Santiago, Chile.

* "How AI Will Change your life - A Futurist's Guide to a Super-Smart World" - Patrick Dixon's latest book on AI is published in September 2024 by Profile Books.  It contains 38 chapters on the impact of AI across different industries, government and our wider world, including chapters on the future impact of AI on energy markets, defence, war and national security.

Read more: Russian military strategy in Ukraine under pressure. Longer term impact of military action / war on energy industry, wider economy and other geopolitical risks. Patrick Dixon is a Futurist Keynote Speaker

Future of War: defence spending by superpowers, hybrid conflicts, space weapons, new nuclear risks, AI / Artificial Intelligence, satellite wars, military drones, robot fighters, future arms industry. Assymetric threats and terrorism, failed states

Futurist Keynote Speaker: Posts, Slides, Videos - Government, Politics, Democracy, War - Future

Extract from The Future of Almost Everything book - written 2019.  

More than $1.8 trillion is spent every year on weapons and other defence costs, or 2.5% of global GDP, down from 4% in the last days of the Cold War, equivalent to $250 per person on earth. Combined sales of the largest 100 arms companies is around $320bn a year. However, 40% of all global military spending is by one nation alone: America, which burns up more in this way than the next 15 highest-spending nations combined. This is a truly spectacular imbalance of military fire-power, and will be unsustainable in the longer term, as we will see. Next is China with 9.5% of global military spending, followed by Russia at 5.2%, UK 3.5% and Japan 3.4%.

America needs to spend just 3% of GDP on arms to achieve such dominance – compared to Russia, which today spends 4% of a much smaller economy, China 2%, India 2%, UK 2%, France 2%, Israel 6%, Saudi Arabia 9% and Oman 12%. This relentless build-up of ultra-powerful weaponry will continue to feed tension, resentment and fear over the next two decades. America’s army, navy and air force will be dominant globally for the next 15‒20 years, despite rapidly increasing military budgets in Russia and China.

* "How AI Will Change your life - A Futurist's Guide to a Super-Smart World" - Patrick Dixon's latest book on AI is published in September 2024 by Profile Books.  It contains 38 chapters on the impact of AI across different industries, government and our wider world, including the impact of AI on defence, war, battle strategies and autonomous weapons.

Read more: Future of War: defence spending by superpowers, hybrid conflicts, space weapons, new nuclear risks, AI / Artificial Intelligence, satellite wars, military drones, robot fighters, future arms industry. Assymetric threats and terrorism, failed states

Why future wars will be radically different: Hybrid Conflicts, Civil Chaos, AI-linked Cyberattacks, Border Disputes. Impact on defence spending, Superpowers Military Strategy - keynote speaker - FEATURE

Futurist Keynote Speaker: Posts, Slides, Videos - Government, Politics, Democracy, War - Future

A few years ago, I gave a lecture to the Pentagon (USPACOM), on how to reduce risks of future wars and reduce international tensions. It was one of the toughest assignments I can remember.

Our world spends over $1.8 trillion every year on weapons and other defence costs, or 2.5% of global GDP, down from 4% in the last days of the Cold War, equivalent to $250 per person on earth. Combined sales of the largest 100 arms companies is around $320 billion a year - yet most of it is completely irrelevant to the conflicts of the future.

40% of all global military spending is by one nation alone: America, which burns up more in this way than the next 15 highest-spending nations combined. This is a truly spectacular imbalance of military fire-power, and will be unsustainable in the longer term as we will see.  America only needs to spend 3% of GDP on arms to achieve such dominance – compared to Russia which today spends 4% of a much smaller economy, China 2%, India 2%, UK 2%, France 2%, Israel 6%, Saudi Arabia 9% and Oman 12%.... But how do we ensure world peace?....

Read more: Why future wars will be radically different: Hybrid Conflicts, Civil Chaos, AI-linked Cyberattacks, Border Disputes. Impact on defence spending, Superpowers Military Strategy - keynote speaker - FEATURE

Risk of Russia war with NATO. Russia's past is key to it's military future. War and Russian economy, Russian foreign policy and political aspirations, future relationship between Russia, China, EU, NATO and America - geopolitical risks keynote speaker

Futurist Keynote Speaker: Posts, Slides, Videos - Government, Politics, Democracy, War - Future

20 March 2024 comment on post below: We are now only one step from NATO formally declaring war against Russia.  That step would be a military action by Russia against a NATO member.  But how likely is this?

Our world is facing the greatest geopolitical risks we have seen for over 40 years, with an ongoing war in Eastern Europe, conflict in the Middle East and major tensions over the future of Taiwan.

The Second World War showed us how a war in one region can make other conflicts more likely, because different nations start seeing opportunities of their own in the midst of regional and global chaos.

History shows that the ability of dictators to start new wars is directly related to the political power they have. And President Putin's power base in Russia is now stronger than before the invasion of Ukraine, while his ambition continues to grow to expand the territory that Russia controls.

The more powerful a dictator becomes, by definition, the quieter the voices of dissent around them, the more feeble the challenges to any unrealistic ambitions. Powerful dictators risk loosing their grip on practical realities (eg actual military strength) because those around them are often too afraid to tell them the truth. P

Europe / NATO is therefore at great risk of a further miscalculation / gamble by President Putin, emboldened by a distorted view of the wider world, by lack of internal threats to his power, by mobilisation of his nation to a wartime economy, and by what he believes is fading support for Ukraine in the US.  

Set against this is the fact that Russian military strength has been weakened in the last two years.

 In comparison, NATO / Western Europe can hardly find enough ammunition to supply half of Ukraine's front-line needs, has been very slow to ramp up defence spending, has a poorly defined nuclear weapons strategy, and is in no fit state to go to war against Russia. 

A single new military action by President Putin could be enough to trigger war with NATO, with potential for vast destruction across Western, Eastern and Central Europe - even assuming that no nuclear weapons are fired.  

The most effective way to reduce this risk is for Europe / NATO to rapidly mobilise for outright war, as a preventative measure, but this is currently happening at a very slow pace.  

Manufacturing of new weaponry is painfully slow, and EU nations have hardly woken up to the wartime realities which will mean diverting major spending from other important areas such as health care, and increasing government debt.

Expect EU / NATO to accelerate military spending, with many nations budgeting 2% of GDP, some like Poland far more, by 2027, partly because of pressures from the US to honour NATO-related pledges.

Expect many corporations to continue to shorten supply chains to minimise risk, sourcing within regions rather than across the world.

11 July 2022 note on post below:  History shows that small conflicts often trigger wider ones which is what is happening.  Hundreds of companies cancelled Russian business contracts or exited operations altogether from Russia within days and weeks of the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, but wider factors remain far more important from the global point of view.

On the one hand, the Russian economy was in any case smaller than Spain before the invasion, and will continue to shrink rapidly during the rest of 2022 and into 2023.  Yet on the other hand, it has a huge old-fashioned military able to create First World War type regional destruction on a massive scale - without using nuclear devices.  Sadly it can cost a mere $100,000 to blow up a 1000 year old building, but $500m to rebuild and restore (and nothing can replace the original history).

So Russia is not an economic superpower able to sustain a massive war for a long period without financial catastrophe.  Nor does Russia have the economic, military or organisational power to subdue and control 40 million angry and bitter Ukrainians....

Read more: Risk of Russia war with NATO. Russia's past is key to it's military future. War and Russian economy, Russian foreign policy and political aspirations, future relationship between Russia, China, EU, NATO and America - geopolitical risks keynote speaker

What will be President Trump's longer term impact on America, global politics, news reporting, future of democracy itself. Why he fits many predictions I made and what is likely to happen next to political leadership globally. FEATURE

Futurist Keynote Speaker: Posts, Slides, Videos - Government, Politics, Democracy, War - Future

President Trump is very typical of a new generation of "single-issues politicians", rising up around the world as I predicted years ago (article written September 2018)

He thrives on the elusive powers of 24 hours a day media-streaming of his thoughts and feelings, taps into populist emotions, connects with the passions of ordinary people, expresses very well their fears for their own future, as well as their dreams for their own children.

A part of this has been the powerful slogan: "Make America Great Again", which feeds into deep unease about the declining role, influence and economic powers of America as a proportion of the whole world.  This in turn is being driven by the very long term, irresistible and relentless rise in emerging nations, where 85% of humanity already live.

Leaving aside whatever you may feel about President Trump's official, longer term policies, the truth is that his day to day communications and actions are massively different from what is normally expected in developed nations of their own Presidents or Prime Ministers, and are much more typical in some ways of patterns that we tend to see amongst semi-dictators in emerging markets....

Read more: What will be President Trump's longer term impact on America, global politics, news reporting, future of democracy itself. Why he fits many predictions I made and what is likely to happen next to political leadership globally. FEATURE

Why Trump Won - how tribalism will dominate the future of democracy: and why President Trump will struggle to deliver

Futurist Keynote Speaker: Posts, Slides, Videos - Government, Politics, Democracy, War - Future

Reasons for the US election victory of Donald Trump will be debated for decades. Here are major long-term factors at work across America and in every other democratic nation, which I described in The Future of Almost Everything - my latest book, see below, (with additions in italics today).  These set the backdrop for dramatic events over the last few hours (9 November 2016), and also influenced the Brexit vote.  Read on for"  What happens when faith in ideologies and parties dies; why tribalism is the most powerful force in the world today; why President Trump will struggle to deliver.

Read more: Why Trump Won - how tribalism will dominate the future of democracy: and why President Trump will struggle to deliver

Here Comes Radical Change: Future of Public Services, Demographics -- Keynote Speaker

Futurist Keynote Speaker: Posts, Slides, Videos - Government, Politics, Democracy, War - Future

Patrick Dixon -- conference keynote speaker -- impact of demographics, birth rates, youth, urban migration and immigration, life expectancy forecasts. All impact demand for public services, health care budgets, community services, demand for education...

Read more: Here Comes Radical Change: Future of Public Services, Demographics -- Keynote Speaker

Social networks impact on democracy, dictatorships and freedom of information

Futurist Keynote Speaker: Posts, Slides, Videos - Government, Politics, Democracy, War - Future

democracy and democratic pressures from social networks. Cover ups and government deceptions, impact of wikileaks on government internal communications and policies. Freedom of information and corruption. Politics and political change. Impact of SMS, twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, Youtube and other social networks on dictatorships v democracy. How dictators fear loss of political power from freedom of information. Use of mobile technology, smart phones and other communication devices to drive protests and public disorder. How governments and dictatorships have switched off mobile telephones and SMS, web ...

Read more: Social networks impact on democracy, dictatorships and freedom of information

Future of Conflicts

Futurist Keynote Speaker: Posts, Slides, Videos - Government, Politics, Democracy, War - Future

Preventing Future Conflicts - with special reference to Asia Pacific. Keynote address for 500 US military (US Pentagon Pacific Command senior leadership) and guests.

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Radical Activists: How aggressive passion in tiny numbers of people will change our world and impact of terrorism.

Futurist Keynote Speaker: Posts, Slides, Videos - Government, Politics, Democracy, War - Future

Radical political forces, activism, terrorism and single issues. Carbon trading? Global warming? Environment? Discrimination and social justice?

Democracy what kind of system is best? Are other systems of government more appropriate in some emerging economies? Different systems of democracy.

How democracy could work for a global government based loosely around the UN United Nations. Should the majority global population have power to alter how the global village is run ...

Read more: Radical Activists: How aggressive passion in tiny numbers of people will change our world and impact of terrorism.

Dictatorships and Revolution in Digital Age: People Power after Tunisia, Egypt, Libya

Futurist Keynote Speaker: Posts, Slides, Videos - Government, Politics, Democracy, War - Future

What next after Tunisia, Libya, Egypt? Impact of SMS, twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, Youtube and other social networks on dictatorships v democracy in Middle East and across the world. How Africa, Arab and Asia dictators fear loss of political power from freedom of information.

Use of mobile technology, smart phones and other communication devices to drive protests and public disorder. How governments and dictatorships have switched off mobile telephones and SMS, web access etc to maintain political control. How power is shifting from government leaders, ...

Read more: Dictatorships and Revolution in Digital Age: People Power after Tunisia, Egypt, Libya

Democracy: is democracy always best form of government?

Futurist Keynote Speaker: Posts, Slides, Videos - Government, Politics, Democracy, War - Future

Democratic models of government may not always be best. Risks from trying to impose a Western developed nation model on rest of world. Need to respect different political traditions, forms of government and cultural differences. Seeking to impose democratic system can be seen as form of cultural imperialism.

Where the majority of the country favour a particular radical direction, democratic elections may result in governments and policies that are more extreme than the dictators that were replaced.

Read more: Democracy: is democracy always best form of government?